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Struis ICT edited this page Aug 7, 2026 · 3 revisions

Usage

Scanning

  • Scan all drives scans every volume in parallel — results stream in per drive as each finishes, and each drive card shows a live progress percentage while it works.
  • ClutterCutter also auto-scans on startup, so it opens straight into a populated view.
  • Click a drive card in the left sidebar to jump to that drive. If it was already scanned (the startup sweep or a prior Scan all drives), ClutterCutter drills straight into the cached results with no rescan; it only re-scans a drive that hasn't been scanned yet.
  • Press F5 to re-scan the last target; Esc stops a running scan.

The table

The main table lists the selected folder's contents — subfolders first, then files, alphabetically:

Column Meaning
Name Folder / file, with an icon
% of parent A bar showing this item's share of its parent's size
Free A bar and amount showing free space left on the disk this item lives on
Size Total size (including sub-items, for folders)
Own size Bytes in this folder's own files, excluding sub-folders
Files / Folders Counts under this item
Modified Last-modified date

Every column except Name and Size can be hidden from Settings — each has an ⓘ hover tooltip there explaining what it shows.

Search

Type in the search box in the top bar to filter across everything in the current scan by name. Matching files and folders are listed live as you type, each with its full path. Clear the box — or start a new scan — to return to the normal folder view.

Navigating

  • Double-click a folder row to drill in, level after level.
  • The top bar has Back, Forward, and Home buttons (Home jumps back to the all-drives overview).
  • Click any segment of the breadcrumb to jump to that ancestor.

Side-panel views

Open the side panel from the View menu; then use the three icon buttons in the panel's header to switch between:

  • Top largest files — the biggest files anywhere in the scan.
  • Oldest files — by last-modified date.
  • Safe-to-delete temp files — known temp/cache locations, with a Recycle all button.

The panel can be detached into its own floating window, and there's a draggable splitter between it and the table.

Deleting

Everything goes to the Recycle Bin, never a permanent delete:

  • Select a row and press Del, or right-click → Move to Recycle Bin.
  • In the temp-files view, Ctrl/Shift-click to multi-select, then Del — or Recycle all.
  • Deletes update the view in place on a background thread — the sizes along the path adjust with no rescan and no freeze.

Right-click actions

Open in Explorer · Copy path · Open Command Prompt here · Move to Recycle Bin.

Keyboard shortcuts

Key Action
F5 Refresh / re-scan
Esc Stop the running scan
Enter Drill into the selected row
Backspace Go to the parent folder
Del Move selected item(s) to the Recycle Bin

Settings

Open File → Settings… for a themed settings window where you choose the program's defaults. Changes apply live and save automatically (close with the × or Esc). You can set:

  • Appearance — theme (Light / Dark / Auto) and size units (binary KiB/MiB or decimal KB/MB).
  • Startup — which side-panel view opens by default, and whether to auto-scan all drives on launch.
  • Behaviour — confirm before recycling, and whether to show the drives sidebar.
  • Columns — which of the optional table columns to show (Name and Size are always shown); each row has an ⓘ tooltip describing the column.

Settings live in %APPDATA%\ClutterCutter\settings.cfg.

Updates

Help → About shows the version and a Check for updates link. It asks GitHub for the latest release and, if a newer one exists, points you at winget upgrade StruisICT.ClutterCutter or the releases page. It never downloads or runs anything itself — checking is a one-click, opt-in action.

Theme

A Light / Dark / Auto theme follows the Windows system theme by default; toggle it from the Theme menu, the slider in the top-right, or Settings. Your window size is remembered between launches.

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