Changelog

About

• Kodiak Cleaner has its own website, www.kodiakcleaner.app. Learn More has a new Website button next to Project Page, which still opens GitHub.

Packages

• HOMEPAGE.url and the installer's support and help links in Windows Settings > Apps open www.kodiakcleaner.app. Downloads and updates still come from the GitHub Releases page.

Settings

• Why It Was Made has a book icon in the Settings sidebar instead of an X.
• Text in Getting Started and the other pop-up windows is drawn as crisply as the main window, so descriptions no longer look lighter in some places.

Packages

• The portable ZIP includes CHANGELOG.md, README.md, LICENSE, terms-of-use.md, PRIVACY.md, HOMEPAGE.url and DOWNLOAD.txt again, as the README says (Linux builds had left them out).
• DOWNLOAD.txt links to the Releases page, which lists Dev and Beta builds. The "latest release" link skipped them.

Project

• New README with screenshots, a download guide, how-to steps and an FAQ.
• SECURITY.md points to the Security button under Contact & Feedback.

Cleaner

• Sort By Default now lists the ticked items first in each group, in A to Z order, followed by the unticked items A to Z. Groups keep their order: Windows first, then each program A to Z, and Advanced Cleaning last.
• The list re-sorts when Kodiak Cleaner opens, after Reset to Default, and whenever you click Default (even when it's already selected), so rows don't jump while you're ticking them.

Why It Was Made

• The story now opens "For well over two decades, I used the same cleaning app." (Ted's change.)

Look and Feel

• Title Case checked across Kodiak Cleaner: folder pickers, the Erase Entire Drive prompt, the For column in Programs (All Users) and the Startup folder locations now use it too, and a test now checks labels set in code as well.
• Why It Was Made uses larger text, so the story fills more of the page.

Getting Started

• The Features list now includes everything added recently (Advanced Cleaning, Scheduled Cleaning, Search and Sort, Startup and Programs History, extension icons) and is in A to Z order.

Contact & Feedback

• New Security button beside Send Feedback, Report a Bug and Request a Feature. It opens the security report form, still sent privately by email.
• Report a Bug, Request a Feature and Security now use the same accent color as Send Feedback.
• The small "Report a Security Problem Privately" link is gone; the Security button replaces it.

Cleaner

• Sort By now starts with Default, selected out of the box: Windows first, then each program A to Z, items A to Z in every group, and Advanced Cleaning last.
• A to Z is now plain alphabetical order, so Windows takes its alphabetical place among the programs. Everyone starts on Default after this update.

Programs

• New History button: a record of everything removed or changed on the Programs page, with the date: uninstalled programs, deleted entries, renames, and the leftover registry keys, files, folders, shortcuts and startup entries removed after an uninstall.
• Restore Selected puts records back: deleted entries, renames and leftover registry keys from their backups, leftover files and folders from the Recycle Bin (while they are still in it), and leftover startup entries from the Startup history. An uninstalled program is kept as a record only, since it can't be put back from here.
• Search, Select All and Forget Selected work as in the Startup history.

Settings

• Back Up Settings now also saves the Programs history.

Cleaner

• Sort By above the list: A to Z (the default), Last Cleaned, Most Space Freed and Largest Found. Groups and the items inside them move to match, Advanced Cleaning stays last, and your choice is remembered.
• A new Last Cleaned column shows when each item was last cleaned (Today, Yesterday, 5 days ago or Never). Kodiak Cleaner now remembers when each item was cleaned and how much it freed, in KodiakCleaner.ini.
• New Schedule button: make named cleanings that run on chosen days, for example your browsers every week and Windows once a month. Pick weekly days or a day of the month, a time, and the items (with Basic Items, All Browsers, Same as Cleaner and Clear shortcuts, and a tick on each group heading for the whole group).
• Schedules use Windows Task Scheduler: it starts Kodiak Cleaner at that time, which cleans without a window and then closes, so nothing runs in the background. A schedule missed while the PC was off runs at the next chance. Run Now, Edit and Delete are in the same window.
• Items with a caution can't be scheduled. Items that need administrator rights are skipped unless the installed version's administrator turns on Run as Administrator for that schedule.

Rules

• Anything added to any list from now on is placed in A to Z order.

Cleaner

• The list is now in alphabetical order: Windows comes first, then each program A to Z (Ablaze Floorp, Brave, Google Chrome and so on), with Advanced Cleaning last. The items inside every group, Windows and Advanced Cleaning included, are A to Z too.
• New Reset to Default button: after a confirm, it ticks only the basic items Kodiak Cleaner starts with and unticks everything else. It never ticks anything from Advanced Cleaning or anything with a caution.

Look and Feel

• Every pop-up (confirms, cautions, messages and problems) now uses Kodiak Cleaner's own window instead of the plain Windows box. It follows your color scheme, light or dark mode and accent color, with rounded corners and an icon that shows what kind of message it is.
• Cautions, like the Advanced Cleaning warning and the warnings on risky items such as Shadow Copies, show the risk in a highlighted box. The risky Yes button is red and No is the default, so pressing Enter is always the safe choice.
• Buttons can also be picked with their first letter (Y, N, C, O).

Cleaner

• New Advanced Cleaning items: Windows Icon Cache, Windows Internet History, Remote Desktop Cache, Windows Sidebar Cache, Downloaded Program Files, Offline Web Pages, Active Setup Temp Folders, Prefetch Data and Print Queue. Windows Log Files now includes Windows upgrade logs too.
• New Windows tasks under Advanced Cleaning, each using Windows' own tool: DNS Cache, Clipboard, Run (in Start Menu) (backed up first), BranchCache, Windows Update Cleanup (DISM), Windows Event Viewer Logs (each log saved to Backups first; the Security log is never cleared), Windows Shadow Copies (the newest is always kept), System Hibernation File (powercfg) and Compress System Installation (compact /compactos).
• Items that can cause harm show a red caution under their description, ask before they can be ticked, are skipped by Select All, and never run in the automatic cleans (Clean When Windows Starts, the jump list and the tray). They run only when you click Run Cleaner.
• New browsers: Opera, Opera GX and Waterfox.
• Left out on purpose: Game Statistics Files (no longer used since Windows 10), User File History (it's File History's own backup data), Windows Defender (its records are part of your protection, and Windows blocks changes to them), Windows Downloads (your own files), Windows Font Cache (locked by a Windows service), Windows Installer Cache (removing it breaks repairs, uninstalls and updates) and Windows MUI Cache (Registry already removes the stale entries).

Startup

• Add: pick a program or a shortcut and Kodiak Cleaner puts a shortcut to it in your Startup folder. A picked shortcut is moved there (or copied, if you turn Move the Shortcut off). Administrators can add it for everyone on the PC.
• Startup History: Kodiak Cleaner records every startup entry it sees, each time the Startup page is opened or refreshed (it never watches in the background). The History button lists them all with when each was first seen and when it was removed, whether by Kodiak Cleaner or by something else. Tick removed entries and click Restore Selected to put them back, on or off as they were. Forget Selected drops records you don't need.
• Before removing an entry, Kodiak Cleaner backs it up (registry entries to a .reg file, shortcuts to the Recycle Bin and a saved copy) and records it in the history, including entries removed by Uninstall's leftovers step.
• Shortcuts show their program's icon.

Cleaner

• Opening Advanced Cleaning first shows a warning that cleaning these items can harm your computer or make a problem harder to troubleshoot, and asks you to be mindful. No is the default.

Browser Extensions

• Each extension shows its own icon beside its name, and each browser shows the installed browser's icon. Both are read from files already on your PC.
• Extensions in Helium, Ablaze Floorp and Mullvad Browser are listed too.
• The search box matches the other pages.

Settings

• Back Up Settings also saves a dated copy of the Startup History.

Cleaner

• Each browser shows its own icon beside its name, read from the browser installed on your PC. Windows gets the File Explorer icon. A browser whose program can't be found shows a plain placeholder, and no logos are bundled with Kodiak Cleaner.
• A search box above the list finds items by name, browser or description. Select All ticks only what the search shows.
• New browsers: Ablaze Floorp (cache and cookies), Helium (cache, history and cookies) and Mullvad Browser (cache and cookies, installed or on the desktop). Each is listed only when it's on your PC. Helium uses the same program name as Google Chrome, so it is skipped while either is open.
• Advanced Cleaning: a new button shows deeper temporary-file items: temp folders of Windows services, temp files of Microsoft Store apps, the Windows internet cache, Windows log files more than 7 days old, Live Kernel Reports and graphics driver shader caches. None are ticked until you choose them, and hiding Advanced Cleaning unticks them again.
• After an analysis, Kodiak Cleaner quietly measures Advanced Cleaning's items. It suggests opening it only when they would free at least 1 GB, or at least 200 MB while the Windows drive is nearly full (under 10% or 10 GB free). Otherwise it says nothing.
• Results say "1 file" instead of "1 files".

Startup

• Every entry shows the icon of the program it starts. Entries whose program is missing show a plain placeholder.
• A search box above the list finds entries by name, command or location. Select All ticks only what the search shows.

Programs

• Every program shows its own icon next to its name, the same one Windows' Apps list uses where it can find it.
• Tick boxes and Select All: tick several programs and click Uninstall to remove them one at a time. Each one gets the full routine (registry backup, its own uninstaller, then the leftovers list) and finishes before the next starts. At the end you get a summary of each. Select All ticks only the programs your search shows.
• Kodiak Cleaner now waits until an uninstaller has completely finished, including ones that hand over to a helper in the Temp folder or ask questions part way through, before it looks for leftovers.
• Windows Installer programs go straight to their uninstall instead of opening their change screen.
• If an uninstall is cancelled, you can stop the rest of the list or carry on with the next program.

Programs

• Uninstall now cleans up after itself. Kodiak Cleaner first backs up the program's registry entries to a .reg file and notes what it has installed, then runs the program's own uninstaller. Once the program is really gone, it looks again for leftover folders (Program Files, AppData, ProgramData), Start Menu and desktop shortcuts, registry keys and startup entries, and lists them for you to choose from. Folders and shortcuts go to the Recycle Bin, and registry keys and startup entries are backed up first.
• If an uninstaller hands over to another window and closes, Kodiak Cleaner waits for it, and asks before looking for leftovers. If the uninstall was cancelled, nothing else is touched.
• Leftovers are matched by the program's exact name only. Windows, shared folders such as Common Files, folders that hold another installed program, and names another program uses are never offered.

Registry

• Backups now keep values of rare and nonstandard types exactly, so restoring a backup brings them back with the same type.

Cleaner

• Ticking or unticking an item is saved straight away, so Clean When Windows Starts, the jump list and the tray's Run Cleaner Now always clean what you see ticked.
• Empty folders that a program created in the last day are left alone when an item only cleans older files, just like the files themselves.
• Changing an age setting while an analysis runs no longer shows an error.

Registry

• A folder Windows redirects for 32-bit programs (System32, SysWOW64) is checked in both places, and a file that can't be read is no longer reported as missing.
• Entries whose program path can't be worked out for sure (no quotes and no known file type) are no longer flagged as missing.
• If the backup can't be saved, nothing is changed.
• Backups of values that hold line breaks are written so they still restore.

Startup and Programs

• Removing a startup entry also backs up whether it was on or off, and startup-folder entries are backed up too.
• Uninstall and Repair start the program's own uninstaller directly instead of going through a command prompt.

Tools

• Empty Folders never lists or removes anything inside AppData, Windows or program folders, even when you search a folder that contains them.
• Empty Folders never offers your Desktop, Documents, Downloads, Pictures or other Windows folders for removal, even when they're empty. Empty folders inside them are still found.
• Disk Analyzer no longer shows repeated error messages when the folder box is cleared.
• Drive Wiper won't offer the drive that holds your user folder or Program Files, and checks that the drive is still the same one right before erasing it.
• Wipe Free Space clears anything left from an interrupted run first, and stops with a message if it couldn't write anything.
• Right-clicking empty space in a table no longer acts on the row that was selected before.

Updates

• Automatic updates download the MSI ZIP that each release ships, check it against its published checksum and install it after Kodiak Cleaner has fully closed, so files are replaced right away instead of at the next restart.
• A check that couldn't reach GitHub no longer waits a full day before trying again.

Start-up and Windows

• Restart as Administrator waits for the old window to close, so it reliably comes back elevated.
• Opening Kodiak Cleaner normally while an administrator copy is running no longer leaves a hidden copy behind.
• A window that was maximized comes back maximized from the system tray.
• Restore All Settings now resets the sidebar, animations and badge straight away.

Text

• The Privacy Policy now lists every tool, the optional Windows entries a few features add, what uninstalling leaves behind and how update downloads are checked.
• Terms of Use describe what each part of Kodiak Cleaner changes, including scheduled tasks, programs and the Recycle Bin.
• Light wording edits to Why It Was Made, the README and the security policy.

Sidebar

• When the sidebar is collapsed, its icons are bigger and centered.
• Pointing at any sidebar entry shows its name, collapsed or not.
• Drive Wiper has a new icon, a drive with a bin on it, and Disk Analyzer now uses a pie chart, so the two no longer share an icon.

Settings

• New Sidebar card under General: Adjustable Sidebar Width (off keeps the default width and hides the paperclip) and Show the Paperclip.

About

• The About page now fills the window like every other page.

Sidebar

• Tools now start open. Click the Tools heading to fold them away; Kodiak Cleaner remembers the choice.
• The sidebar's width can be adjusted. Click the paperclip at the bottom right of the sidebar to stand it upright, then drag the sidebar's edge. Click it again to lay it on its side, which resets the default width and locks it there.
• New collapse button below the paperclip: it shrinks the sidebar to just the logo and the icons. Click it again to bring the names back.
• The Kodiak Cleaner name shrinks to fit when the sidebar is made narrower.

Cleaner

• The checkbox column header now has a Select All box. Every Select All box shows a dash when only some rows are ticked.

New Tools

• Large Files: lists the biggest files in a folder (50 MB, 100 MB, 500 MB or 1 GB and up). Tick files or right-click one to move it to the Recycle Bin, or open the folder it's in. Windows, program folders, and hidden or system files are skipped.
• Scheduled Tasks: lists the programs Windows runs on a schedule, with switches, batch buttons and a right-click menu to turn them off or on. Windows' own tasks are hidden unless Show Windows Tasks is on. Tasks are never deleted.
• System Information: Windows edition and build, processor, memory, drives and up time, with Copy to Clipboard for support questions. Read-only; nothing leaves your PC.
• Tools stay in alphabetical order, and Getting Started lists the new ones.

Look and Feel

• New Animations switch under Settings > Appearance > Motion. Off stops every animation, including the logo dance and moving progress bars.
• The Getting Started window shows a bigger logo that does a little dance when it opens, and again on hover or click.
• The Glacier tile's lock label now reads Supporter, so it no longer gets cut off.

Registry

• The checkbox column header now has a Select All box.
• Right-click an issue and choose Fix This Issue to fix just that one (backed up first, like every fix).

Help

• Why It Was Made opens with a short title, "Built Around What Matters".

Developer

• The plan preview offers just Free and Supporter.

Packages

• File names carry the channel once, at the end: KodiakCleaner-0.8.10-x64-msi-dev.zip and KodiakCleaner-0.8.10-x64-portable-dev.zip.

Look and Feel

• The bear logo does a little dance when you point at it or click it. It stays still when animation effects are off in Windows.
• The Kodiak Cleaner name in the sidebar is now the largest text in the app, and the sidebar is a little wider so it fits.
• Checkbox and on/off columns have a fixed width with no column divider, and their header boxes line up with the boxes below. Column dividers now show only in the header.

Startup

• Right-click an entry to Enable, Disable or Remove From Startup.

Settings

• New Close to System Tray switch: the close button hides Kodiak Cleaner by the clock instead of quitting. Use Exit in the tray icon's menu to quit.
• Settings are grouped into titled cards: General (When Kodiak Cleaner Starts, Window and System Tray, Windows Integration), Cleaning (Automatic Cleaning, Safety, Keep Recent Files), Updates (Check Now, Automatic Updates) and Advanced (Administrator Rights). Clean When Windows Starts moved to Cleaning.

Settings

• Advanced: new Always Start as Administrator switch. Kodiak Cleaner asks Windows for administrator rights every time it starts; decline the prompt and it starts normally. Skip the User Account Control Prompt (installed copies) does the same without the prompt.

Installer

• The MSI now ships only inside a ZIP, never as a bare .msi file.

Look and Feel

• The name is just Kodiak Cleaner everywhere: the title bar, taskbar, Start menu, installed apps list, installer and messages. The version still shows the channel, for example "0.8.7 Dev" under the name in the sidebar, with a Dev chip on About.

Look and Feel

• The Kodiak Cleaner name and logo at the top of the sidebar are larger, so they stand out next to the page titles.
• Ted's name now reads Ted Tabaka everywhere, including the copyright and license.

Startup

• The Beta Software notice says to use Kodiak Cleaner at your own risk, and that more testing is needed before every feature can be confirmed to work as intended.

Settings

• Terms of Use has a new Beta Software: Use at Your Own Risk section.
• Developer: the Preview Plan explains the difference between Off and Free.

Installer

• Kodiak Cleaner installs to Program Files\Kodiak Cleaner for every channel. Dev, Beta and Stable now replace each other instead of installing side by side. Installing 0.8.6 over 0.8.5 moves it out of the old Kodiak Cleaner Dev folder. Settings start fresh once, and any registry backups stay in the old folder's Backups (delete the old folder when you no longer need them).

New Logo

• Kodiak Cleaner has its own logo: a computer with bear ears, a bear face on the screen and a sparkle for a clean PC. It's on the app icon, the sidebar, About, Getting Started and the installer.

Programs

• Right-click a program for Uninstall, Repair, Rename and Delete Entry; the same actions are buttons at the top.
• Repair fixes Windows Installer programs, or opens the program's own repair screen.
• Rename changes the name shown here and in Windows' Apps list. Delete Entry removes a leftover from the list without uninstalling. Both back up the entry to a .reg file first.
• Clicking the search box empties it so you can type a new search straight away.

Registry

• Scan for Issues, Fix Selected, Back Up Now and Open Backups Folder sit in one row above the results.

Startup

• Tick entries (or the box in the header for all of them), then Disable Selected or Enable Selected in one go. Remove Selected works on ticked entries too.
• The on/off switch moved to the right end of each row.

Look and Feel

• Every table has alternating row colors, clearer row lines and a visible column divider that turns the accent color when you can drag it to resize.
• Tools are listed in alphabetical order.
• Cleaner and Registry options use Title Case too.

Fixes

• Text in search and other boxes no longer starts too far to the right.
• The Rename box now follows the color scheme.

Installer

• The MSI's welcome page and page headers show the Kodiak Cleaner bear.
• Each release also includes the MSI inside a ZIP, for browsers that block .msi downloads.

Startup

• A Beta Software notice appears each time Kodiak Cleaner starts, as a reminder that cleaning software in beta may delete information you didn't mean to remove. Turn on Don't Show This Again at Startup before closing it to stop it, or bring it back under Settings > General.

Look and Feel

• Getting Started has a Features card listing everything Kodiak Cleaner can do.
• Appearance explains why each color scheme was chosen.

Settings

• Why It Was Made: lightly edited, and it now says Kodiak Cleaner throughout.

Installer

• The MSI installer is built with every release again, including Dev builds, and two errors that stopped it from building are fixed.

Look and Feel

• New Classic color scheme, between Honey and Glacier: the familiar greys and blue of the first versions. Free for everyone.
• Title Case on every button, switch and option label.
• The sidebar has a Cleaning heading, and Tools fold away until you click the heading (Kodiak Cleaner remembers your choice).

Settings

• Contact & Feedback: Send Feedback, Report a Bug and Request a Feature open a form. Send Email opens your email app with the message ready to send.
• Privacy Policy is now a page under Help.
• Backups is split into Registry (with Back Up Now, which saves every area Kodiak Cleaner can change) and Application (back up or reset your settings file).
• The footer shows the copyright and the license on separate lines; Terms of Use stays under Help.

About

• The Get in Touch card is gone. Getting Started and Project Page moved to a new Learn More card.

Fixes

• Copying no longer fails with "OpenClipboard Failed" when another program is holding the clipboard.

Name

• New name everywhere: the window, Start menu, installer, files (KodiakCleaner.exe, KodiakCleaner.ini) and the GitHub project (ttabakagroup/kodiakcleaner).
• The slogan appears on About and Getting Started.

Tools

• Disk Analyzer: see which folders and files take up the most space, drill into folders, and send big files to the Recycle Bin.
• Empty Folders: find folders with nothing in them and move them to the Recycle Bin. Windows, program folders and AppData are never searched.
• Browser Extensions: list the extensions in Chrome, Edge, Brave, Vivaldi and Firefox, with version and on/off state.

Settings

• Why It Was Made: Ted's story behind Kodiak Cleaner, under Help (also linked from About).

Settings

• Accent colors are back: Windows (follows your Windows accent color), Blue, Teal, Green, Purple, Pink, Orange and Graphite, on top of the Honey or Glacier color scheme. The first swatch keeps the scheme's own accent.
• About is back in the main sidebar, just under Settings.

Cleaning

• Cleaner for Windows temporary files, the Recycle Bin, thumbnail cache, error reports, crash dumps, DirectX shader cache, Windows Update and Delivery Optimization caches and the recent documents list.
• Browser cleaning (cache, history, cookies) for Chrome, Edge, Brave, Vivaldi and Firefox, skipped while the browser is open.
• Analyze first to see sizes, then run the cleaner. Your selections are remembered.
• Registry scanner that backs up every fix to a .reg file before making it.
• Startup manager that turns programs on and off the same way Task Manager does.
• Installed programs list with search and uninstall.

Tools

• Duplicate Finder: finds files with identical contents. Removed copies go to the Recycle Bin, and the last copy is never removed.
• System Restore: list, create and remove Windows restore points.
• Drive Wiper: overwrite free space, or securely erase a whole non-system drive.

Settings

• Options & Settings with its own sidebar: General, Cleaning, Updates and Advanced, then Appearance, Supporter, About, Backups, Contact & Feedback and Terms of Use.
• Every setting is a switch, saved straight away to KodiakCleaner.ini next to KodiakCleaner.exe. Nothing is stored in AppData.
• Honey (warm cream and gold) and Glacier (calm blue-grey) color schemes, each in light and dark, following Windows by default.
• About page with the version and channel, your plan, what's new, a privacy summary and credits.
• Contact & Feedback opens a message in your own email app; nothing is sent automatically.
• Supporter page: a one-time thank-you on Ko-fi unlocks the Glacier theme and a Supporter Badge. Codes are checked on your PC only.
• Built-in Terms of Use and Privacy Policy that work offline.
• Getting Started window on first launch, and What's New after each update.

Install

• MSI installer and portable ZIP. Dev, Beta and Stable builds install side by side.
• Optional update check against GitHub releases (off by default), with each download verified against its published SHA-256.