Clean your computer and memory with Bleachbit

There are many applications to keep your computer clean of junk files and temporary file caches that some software uses. Windows operating system users use tools such as CCleaner to remove unnecessary files on the hard drive or other storage devices to free up disk space and improve performance.

These tools in Linux are very few so there is a free and free software Bleachbit . This software serves both Windows and Linux and allows you to perform disk cleaning and optimization tasks for Linux systems .

In this tutorial we will discuss how to clean Linux systems, but it also works for Windows.

How does BleachBit help us?

Eliminate unnecessary files, clean and optimize cache memory, delete cookies, history of Internet browsers, temporary files that some software uses, delete records of orphaned files that are usually left after updates or uninstallations.

This tool can be used in both Windows and Linux operating systems, by default it supports applications such as Firefox, Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Wine program files and all system files.

It not only removes files, but includes some advanced features such as file purging, which is the permanent deletion of any trace of the file to prevent the recovery of these files, cleaning free disk space even if the file is shared by others. Applications.

We can download Bleachbit from its official website or install it from the Linux repositories.

If we install from the repositories from the terminal window we use the following commands:

Debian / Ubuntu / Mint

 sudo apt-get install bleachbit 

Centos / Fedoira / Red Hat

 yum install bleachbit 

BleachBit allows configurations that change the way you will track files and how they will work. To edit the preferences, we go to the menu in Edit and then in the Preferences option.

Within the Preferences we have the General tab where we can start cleaning along with the system, but this option is not convenient because it will make the system very slow. When it is working BleachBit looks for updates, if an update is found, a notification button appears. By clicking on the corresponding notification and we can download the new version.

The Overwrite files to hide content option is used when files are normally deleted, but the operating system only deletes the file reference, not the content. To securely delete files that cannot be recovered, we must select the option to overwrite the files to hide their content.

The Customize tab allows us to add a folder, this allows us to delete files within that directory only.

The Units tab allows you to select external devices or partitions, for example we can delete files from a pendant or a network drive.

The White List tab is to identify those files or folders that should not be deleted.

In Linux we have two ways of executing one in User mode and another in Administrator mode.
The Administrator mode allows a deeper cleaning but it may also break some system file, so it is only advisable to use it if it is known which files will be affected.

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The default cleaning is those used by command line in Linux:

Autoclean

Remove from the cache the .deb packages with versions earlier than the programs you have installed.

Clean

Remove all packages from the cache. The only drawback that could result is that to reinstall a software we will have to download it.

Autoremove

Remove orphaned files and packages or the dependencies that remain installed after you have uninstalled a program and remain on the disk without them being necessary.

Then we will click on preview and we can see a list of the files that will be deleted, but not deleted.

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Let's see an example:

Here we can observe that more than 26000 files and 820 MB of files are traced to eliminate among all the options. To proceed to delete the files we click on Clean, the process may take a few minutes depending on the size and quantity of files to be deleted.

If we use it on a server we must take into account the consumption of resources when using many disposal options at the same time. One of the advantages of Bleachbit is that it can clean swap memory, which is swap memory and this will allow us to have more free memory.

Everything we do on the computer or on a server is stored in RAM and Swap or exchange memory, as we use applications or generate requests, the data used is not always deleted.

Some systems and applications even store keys and users in memory. BleachBit cleans all this data from memory, so we can optimize computer performance .

It can also be used from a terminal window with the following codes:

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1. To display the list of available modules

You will see the list:

 bleachbit --list 

2. System Memory

One of the modules is system.memory which is RAM and Swap memory, if we want to see what elements it has to eliminate we preview with the following command:

 bleachbit --preview system.memory 

3. Remove items from memory

To permanently delete the elements that are in memory we will use the command:

 bleachbit --clean system.memory 

For more command information, here is the official page:

BleachBit Commands

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BleachBit by deleting files in memory allows other applications to function faster, such as improving the scanning speed of an antivirus or software for disk backups. Bleachbit is not a single solution for all performance problems, but it is very useful as a tool to prevent the hard disk and memory from being saturated with junk data .

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