14 DAY TRIAL // Sometimes you want to delete only certain types of files from a folder. Folder Cleaner has been built to help you achieve this in an easy and quick way. It is supposed to be an automatic alternative to hunting down file formats you want to eliminate from a specific folder.
The application is free of charge and can be used from a portable device (no installation is required) without crippling its functionality as it does not need to save any settings, unless you want to take advantage from predefined folder cleaning profiles. These are standalone files containing the settings for cleaning previously defined files.
Folder Cleaner sports a simple interface equipped with a toolbar which contains the most used functions and a menu bar which expands the usability of the application. Working with the application is pretty simple: add the folders you want cleaned up, define the formats you want removed or those you want to remain untouched and start the cleaning procedure.
We faced some problems when we tried to drop the desired directories in Folder Cleaner’s application window as each time a message would pop out denying access to them. On the other hand, adding them manually from the application’s menu posed no problem.
Cleaning options can be shared by all the folders in the list or you can define different parameters for each entry in the list. The settings affecting all the folders allow you to define both the formats that should be avoided as well as those the application should focus on entirely.
Folder Cleaner offers a set of preset exclusions, among which you’ll find program files such as EXE or COM and library files (DLL, LIB). Items with no extension at all can also be added to the exclusion list; but you can also define your own custom set. Make sure you type the extensions according to the example in the application.
Adding the file formats you want Folder Cleaner to send to oblivion (well, not really, because by default these are sent to Recycle Bin) is not as rich in options. You can create a custom list in the same way as in the case of the exclusion list, but additional options let you add only items with no extension at all.
When building the custom list, make sure that the extensions are separated by nothing but comma. We delimited them with comma and a space and the application failed to recognize the list.
Per folder configuration panel makes available the exact same set of choices, but on top of this you benefit from some brief details about the selected directory, such as path, the time and date you added it to Folder Cleaner’s list. The time and date of the last cleaning is available as well, just like the result of the procedure.
One big issue we bumped into during our tests was that the app does not remove all the files in the cleaning process. Luckily it displays a report with the operation, stating the amount of data it had initially detected for removal and the number of files it actually deleted. Few were the cases when Folder Cleaner managed to get rid of all the items we defined.
What is more interesting is that it failed to eliminate all the items even when they had the same extension. It would almost always skip an item or more from the deletion job, making the entire file removal procedure a gamble.
Besides cleaning folders, the application can also be instructed to eliminate files with a specific name and extension. The feature works just fine, but only if you open up the advanced menu and do not rely on the regular options to delete data.
Regular options for file cleaning do not show you the search results, but just a statistic with the amount of items detected as fitting the search string and their size in KB. Opening the advanced menu offers a wider range of choices and allows you to check the findings as well as remove only the items you select.
Folder Cleaner comes prepared for repetitive cleaning tasks as it can create shortcuts to saved profiles. Unfortunately this failed to work in our case.
Despite the fact that it is free of charge and that it could come in very handy and save plenty of time in some cases, Folder Cleaner does not make for an application you can count on carrying the job 100%. Even if it leaves files behind it will inform you of this in the report displayed at the end of the job.
We managed to clean 3 folders of most of the unnecessary file formats we indicated by running the application 5 times. At the end of this there was still one item that could not be removed. None of the files that had to be deleted were in use during our tests.
Cleaning can be done both based on exclusion as well as inclusion lists and the app can also help you get rid of files sharing the same name easily and quickly. The shortcuts to running saved profiles did not work in our case. Drag and drop is the least of the issues here, but worth mentioning as well.
The Good
The Bad
The Truth
