Update: CCleaner 2.17.853 – free disk space wiping
CCleaner 2.17.853 is now available.
The most interesting addition in this version is the ability to wipe free disk space.
There was already a secure deletion routine implemented in CCleaner, but until now, it was able to only wipe files. This meant that if you deleted a file the usual way and then remembered you wanted to wipe it, you were out of luck.
However, CCleaner 2.17.853 can wipe all free disk space on a partition (or more, there’s a new entry in Options->Settings). The way it does this is interesting and strange at the same time: it seems to create a huge file, taking up all your free disk space, and then it wipes it using the usual secure delete routing.
Some users reported problems with this new functionality, but I’m sure the developers will iron out any existing quirks for the next release.
EXE installer, no toolbar, 918KB, MD5 sum: 73444040FE11B012889B2BD28A748A39
Portable version (extract to USB stick): Download CCleaner 2.17.853 Portable
ZIP, 916KB, MD5 sum: E4828FC44FDD55A3E7975B47061F74DC
- Progress bar changed to go from 0 to 100%.
- Improved Apple Safari history cleaning.
- Improved speed of Uninstaller Tool.
- Interface string changes and fixes.
- Added Ukranian translation.
- Installer language tweaks.
- Minor architecture changes.
- Minor bug fixes.
April 1st, 2009 at 3:39 PM
I just spotted this option and i;m now using it. What benefit does this have on the Operating system’s performance? does it help Hard Drive functions?
April 1st, 2009 at 6:19 PM
Not really. It just allows you to wipe disk space that’s not used up by files.
Usually, software that implements wiping or secure deletion routines work with files not free disk space, so this is a very interesting feature. It doesn’t make your HDDs faster, though.
May 8th, 2009 at 6:08 PM
downloaded latest ccleaner, but the wipe of free space wont complete. left it on for 6 hours………
May 8th, 2009 at 8:20 PM
Mine has been running over 5 hours now. Sure would be nice to know whether to wait of kill it.
Tom C
May 8th, 2009 at 8:23 PM
I suppose the run time depends on how large your hdd is, how much free space you have on it and also on how fragmented is that free disk space.
May 8th, 2009 at 8:34 PM
only C drive, which is 45 gig. i defrag regularly……once a week or so……….have read where this incompletion is not uncommon, but no answers given as to what to do, other than perhaps decompress the hard drive? i do know it is compressed
whole hard drive is only 52 gig……………
May 8th, 2009 at 8:35 PM
Hard drive is 223 GB and about half full, but CCleaner says it has completed 109,502.7 of 109,502.7MB, or 100% of the wipe free space, but remains at 97% completed. It has been that way for over 5 hours. (Running on XP Pro).
May 10th, 2009 at 11:57 AM
let wipe clean run on 41 gb of free space for 10 hours…….still would not complete
May 10th, 2009 at 9:44 PM
i decompressed C and it worked fine…………
June 11th, 2009 at 12:57 PM
if it’s running for several hours it may be due to hard disc errors. Did anyone check the event logs for disk related errors or have you ran chkdsk? I used the wipe clean feature [cclean v 2.19.901] that took about 10 min to complete with 24,397.4 MB of free space.
Winxp SP3 and latest patches as of 6/10/09, 2.8GHz P4.
June 25th, 2009 at 12:14 PM
Interesting. But I don’t understand why one have to choose which partitions in the CCleaner settings? It seems too fast to clean all those in one go when running it from right-clicking bin recycle bin. I also noticed a new right-click option on the drives in windows explorer; “Sweep free space”, which seem to behave like described here (make a big junk-file of the free space then wiping that).
However I got several virus warnings from Avira Antivir Personal. I hope those were false positives from the random patterns the free-space-sweeper makes.
June 25th, 2009 at 8:57 PM
WILL THE WIPE FREE SPACE DELETE MY SYSTEM RESTORE ENTRIES
SOME CLEANERS REMOVE YOUR SYSTEM RETORE …NOT GOOD
July 16th, 2009 at 7:11 PM
i used the wipe free space and my computer lost half i6ts memory on the c drive, as soon as i saw this i stopped it.
Whats the benefit of this wipe free space thing if it reduces memory.
July 16th, 2009 at 7:26 PM
That’s normal behaviour. It happens because CCleaner first creates a huge file and then wipes it using its secure delete routines.
If you had waited for it to finish you would have noticed that the previously “lost” disk space is back.
August 31st, 2009 at 6:54 PM
Does it just delete all the stuff then i get less stuff
such as i used up 15G out of 180G
then i use “Wipe Clean Space”
then i have 10g out of 180G
is it like that?
September 17th, 2009 at 9:47 PM
Thanks, I give this a try on a laptop that someone given me. I previously just use a free program called “file restoration” to perform Free space wiping on my computer. But, CCleaner seems easier to use for beginners.
October 26th, 2009 at 10:33 AM
I can see my disk space being reduced and the great thing is,i have only left it for 5 min and it is 30%.It reduced from 50gb to 25gb in 5 min.Wow i wonder where they save the file.I wanna go take a look
October 26th, 2009 at 10:35 AM
ITS GOING DOWN!what if the file cannot be deleted does that mean i would have to stay with 0 free space forever?
November 2nd, 2009 at 10:39 AM
ONLY wipe evry 2 weeks. NO need 2 do evrytime. CCLEANER IS one of da gr8ez simple apps inven3d in 2dez wel! Mos me clients kold me bak sayin dey LUVS me, eva since i instold it in their ntbook / pc. So simplified dat me 8 y ol dotter enable 2 use it! Me current 5 y old is learning! (she’ll get der as soon as she able 2 read proper!) …and 4 de all freewares dat those geniuz done 4 us, you people, pliz b kind enuff 2 donate 2 their sites!
December 23rd, 2009 at 7:32 PM
rajamir wipe everyday and everytime u go to the bathroom!
January 18th, 2010 at 2:15 AM
So I had the same problem as everyone else. It wouldn’t budge past 97% when it was at 100% of cleaning out my drives. I had watched my 98.6 of 224GB drop to 31.7 at the lowest and was scared to hit cancel after I read this thread in fear of losing all of that memory.
GOOD NEWS is – It’s at 131GB out of 224GB nw! So it worked.. but apparently just didn’t finish! Wonder what I would have got if the thing completed itself! Either way – don’t be afraid to hit Cancel – thats my point. It gives you back the memory you’re afraid has been taken!
February 1st, 2010 at 6:40 AM
I canceled the “wipe free space” feature before it finished multiple times due to the rapid loss of my 600gb hdd.
I later found a file on my c drive of a staggering 200gb that was slowly growing.
I’m guessing my space loss and the creation of this file was due to CCleaner wiping my free space?
I’m hoping i can delete this file later haha
February 7th, 2010 at 1:13 PM
What is the name of the file?
Tom
February 13th, 2010 at 8:25 AM
Just check inside your drive, for example C. there is a file called a lot of strange letters and numbers, and look at its size
Mine is currently at 33 Gb. And thats a lot
March 15th, 2010 at 1:49 AM
“rajamir Says:
November 2nd, 2009 at 10:39 am
ONLY wipe evry 2 weeks. NO need 2 do evrytime. CCLEANER IS one of da gr8ez simple apps inven3d in 2dez wel! Mos me clients kold me bak sayin dey LUVS me, eva since i instold it in their ntbook / pc. So simplified dat me 8 y ol dotter enable 2 use it! Me current 5 y old is learning! (she’ll get der as soon as she able 2 read proper!) …and 4 de all freewares dat those geniuz done 4 us, you people, pliz b kind enuff 2 donate 2 their sites!”
WTF???!!!
After 5 minutes of reading and re-reading, I think I understand what this person is saying. Just in case I’m wrong, can someone translate this into english?
March 26th, 2010 at 5:03 AM
I’ve had CCleaner for months now and ran the wiper several times and its great. It works very well. It takes time and diskspace the way ti does it. I run the regular fatures every night. This sucker digs in. Glary utilities and CCleaner. I defrag and do some cleanup with command prompts and still use CCleaner. Make restore points, I always do, at least two every day just in case something does go sideways. I have a little H-P Notebook Pavillion dv6t 1200, my first laptop, and it screams. Even an H-P tech said that one day when she was performing a remote in regard to a printer issue. She said, “This little machine is fast!”. This partially bcause I keep it clean, registry defragged and repaired, run sfc /scannow regularly, and some tweaking.
March 28th, 2010 at 6:28 PM
I have recently used a file recovery program called pandora recovery , it has restored files which i thought had been erased by tracks eraser pro , anyway , ive downloaded ccCleaner , will this gaurantee to delete the free disk space?
May 28th, 2010 at 5:44 AM
1: if i am not using my admin account, ccleaner won’t wipe free space (but it doesn’t explicitly point that out)
2: if you have problrms with it completing tasks, it may be another security application blocking an action ( i was using the registry tool and the same registry flaw that i told ccleaner to fix wouldn’t go away (which had to do with a Norton 360 related key value) Norton’s security history showed that norton was blocking ccleaner from deleting the key (again, fixed by doing it in admin acct)
3: HERE’s THE BIG ONE after i ran wipe free space in admin, multiple times, my DiskInternals Unerase easily found dozens, maybe hundreds of partial and whole files; deteriorated jpegs, pristine gif’s and it found apparantly hundreds of thousands of file names/locations.
July 8th, 2010 at 3:58 PM
I just downloaded this product and I have used the disk wipe numerous times and it only takes about 15 min. Maybe you guys have giant hard drive that dwarf mine and that is the difference. Mine is 140GB with only like 20GB free. Or maybe the product has just gotten better over time.
July 27th, 2010 at 11:08 PM
Works well, don’t be scared to use it. It does it’s job.
November 20th, 2010 at 7:48 PM
http://www.piriform.com/docs/ccleaner/using-ccleaner/wiping-free-disk-space
December 2nd, 2010 at 2:27 AM
The only reason I can see to wipe unused space is to eliminate private info from deleted files so that a subsequent owner of the PC or, actually, of the hard drive, won’t be able to retrieve and abuse the info. I’m considering using CCleaner before I donate an old PC.
One problem. I see no mention of the wiping process used by CCleaner. Serious wipers usually offer a US Military spec option that overwrites multiple times with different patterns.
Also, I think I read somewhere that CCleaner only wipes unused space for files still listed in the Recycle Bin. But this doesn’t make sense from what I’ve read about it putting all free space in one big file.
December 2nd, 2010 at 4:47 AM
As I see it, CCleaner simply allocates ALL free disk space (regardless of the Recycle Bin, which is not actually considered free space) into a large file and then wipes it completely.
The wiping options are:
- a Simple Overwrite (1 pass),
- DOD 5220.22-M (3 passes),
- NSA (7 passes),
- Gutmann (35 passes).
At least two of these can be considered as “military grade”.
More info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_remanence
http://www.piriform.com/docs/ccleaner/ccleaner-settings/changing-ccleaner-settings
http://www.piriform.com/docs/ccleaner/using-ccleaner/wiping-free-disk-space
December 2nd, 2010 at 7:23 PM
Alex S.
Thanks for clarification of CCleaner free space area included and wipe security options. Exactly what I wanted to know.
I said “US Military spec” but meant DOD (Dept of Defense).
What you say about the Recycle Bin makes sense. What I vaguely recalled probably said CCleaner does NOT wipe files in the Recycle Bin (because the space is still allocated and not free).
March 10th, 2011 at 11:28 AM
Does ccleaner itself delete the file? How long does it take?Can I manually delete the file?If so how?
I used this and my free space on c drive came to 1.66 gb and its staying like that. CCleaner has not yet deleted that file.
March 12th, 2011 at 5:44 PM
For those that have poor IT skills, basically, if you delete a file on Windows it is not actually deleted but the file you ‘deleted’ is actually in a state where it is hidden and will be overwritten when new files are added to the hard drive. This is why CCleaner creates a large file, overwriting all of the ‘free space’ which isn’t really free space but space on the hard drive allocated to being overwritten. CCleaner then genuinely deletes the file completely that it makes so the free space is actually FREE so when you turn on/run your computer, the processor has less Hard drive memory to read. Also, has anyone had CCleaner create a large file and then laptop runs out of battery so you can’t locate the file it made to delete?
March 12th, 2011 at 5:49 PM
my hard drive is 500gb on my laptop and 350gb of it is an unknown file which can only be seen on a program called windirstat that shows what your hdd is filled with. I may have gotten a virus or it may be the CCleaner file not being deleted. I have Kaspersy anti virus 2011 and it didn’t find any virus please help!
April 6th, 2011 at 8:31 AM
I used the Drive Wipe In CCleaner to wipe About 50gb of free space. It took about 30mins to complete. It completed with no problem,Thank God.
What is the benefit of doing this action?
Does free space also become defragmented?
Why wipe free space if it is free in other words empty? What is their to wipe?
Is their any benefit to the system?
I used this tool because it was their and there fore assumed it must be useful but how and why?
December 10th, 2011 at 1:45 PM
ok, in ur folder options, under view, theres somethin like “hide protected operating system files” UNCHECK it then in the $recyclebin u will find ur lost space, this is for external or additional drives/partitions…mostly…not sure about ur main drive…i deleted everything in it in my external and got allllll my free space back
December 10th, 2011 at 1:45 PM
p.s. u need to view hidden files/folders as well
December 10th, 2011 at 1:51 PM
so what “Wipe free space” does in ccleaner…it creates random binary codes on all ur free space….which is basically overwriting anything there since windows delete only deletes the “reference”, this makes ur harddrive disk literally replace everything with random bits, which is EXTREMELY stressfull on ur drive, so dont overdo it. and essentially, that huge file u couldnt see, (till i just told u how) is the random code that over wrote it. now theres probly some fuckup in the ccleaner coding that doesnt “reference delete” it like windows does, so windows sees it as full. its like instead of using the eraser on a pencil, u write over what u already wrote so its illegible, windows doesnt see it as “free” unless u use the eraser….confusing i know….and yes i suck at explaining it….but i told u how to fix it so dont fuggin complain -.-