ClutterCutter
A lightweight Windows disk-usage browser built and maintained by Struis ICT.
Single self-contained native .exe, no installer. Built in Rust with no runtime dependency at all.
If ClutterCutter saves you time hunting down what's eating your disk, consider buying me a coffee ☕ — it keeps this and other Struis ICT tools coming.
Features
- Scan one drive, or all at once — click a drive to scan it, or Scan all drives to scan every volume in parallel; results appear per-drive as each finishes, in alphabetical order. It also auto-scans all drives on startup, so it opens straight into a populated tree.
- MFT fast path — on an NTFS drive as Administrator, ClutterCutter reads the Master File Table directly via
\\.\C: and parses the records in parallel across CPU cores. Far faster than walking the filesystem — a full C: drive (~2 M files) in ~5 seconds.
- FindFirstFileEx fallback with parallel top-level fan-out and
LARGE_FETCH for non-admin / subfolder scans.
- Folder tree + list — browse the tree, or double-click through folders in the list level after level. Each folder lists its subfolders then its files, sorted alphabetically; the Name column stretches to fill the width.
- Side panel views — an optional right-hand panel showing Top largest files, Oldest files, or Safe-to-delete temp files (with a one-click Recycle all). The panel grows with the window, has a draggable splitter between it and the list, and can detach into its own floating window.
- Delete without waiting — recycling a folder or file updates the view in place on a background thread; no full rescan, no freeze.
- Dark / Light / Auto theme that follows the Windows system theme by default. Title bar, menu bar, lists, tree, and panels are all themed via documented + undocumented uxtheme/dwmapi APIs.
- Remembers your window size between launches.
- Always-visible progress in the status bar;
Esc stops a running scan.
- Admin elevation prompt at startup if not elevated, with one-click UAC relaunch.
- Right-click / keyboard actions: Open in Explorer, Copy path, Open Command Prompt here, Move to Recycle Bin.
Download
Pre-built binaries are attached to each GitHub Release. Just grab ClutterCutter.exe and run it — it's a single self-contained file with no runtime dependency, sporting the current UI and all features. This is the build packaged for winget.
Enterprise / network deployment (MSI)
Each release also ships ClutterCutter.msi — a per-machine installer for admins rolling ClutterCutter out across a fleet (Group Policy software installation, SCCM/Intune, etc.):
msiexec /i ClutterCutter.msi /qn # silent, all-users install to Program Files
msiexec /x ClutterCutter.msi /qn # silent uninstall
It installs ClutterCutter.exe to Program Files\ClutterCutter\, adds an all-users Start Menu shortcut, and registers in Add/Remove Programs. Re-running a newer MSI upgrades in place. (Linux/macOS users want the portable build instead — see below.)
Building from source
ClutterCutter is a Rust application; CI builds it on every push. Contributors should read AGENTS.md for the full dev workflow, architecture, and conventions.
Needs the Rust stable toolchain.
cd rust
cargo build --release # -> rust/target/release/cluttercutter.exe (shipped as ClutterCutter.exe)
Cross-platform build (Linux / macOS)
The native GUI above is Windows-only, but the same Rust codebase also builds a
portable egui frontend and a console tool that run on Linux and macOS:
cd rust
cargo run --bin cluttercutter-gui # portable GUI (drives, browse, largest/oldest, search, temp)
cargo run --bin cluttercutter-cli -- --top-n 20 ~ # console harness (full flags in AGENTS.md)
Both share the exact scan engine of the Windows app; on Linux/macOS they use a
portable std::fs walker (the Windows build keeps the faster NTFS-MFT path).
GitHub Actions builds Windows (build.yml) and Linux (linux.yml) on every push
— the Linux job uploads a ClutterCutter-linux-x86_64 binary tarball.
Releasing
Releases are managed by release-please. Conventional-commit messages on main keep an open "release PR" up to date with the next version + a generated changelog. Merging that PR creates the tag and the GitHub Release.
Versions follow Semantic Versioning. Conventional commits map to bumps as follows (the project is currently pre-1.0, so breaking changes bump the minor while the major is held at 0):
| Commit | Pre-1.0 bump (now) | Post-1.0 bump |
|---|
fix: | patch (0.3.0 → 0.3.1) | patch |
feat: | minor (0.3.0 → 0.4.0) | minor |
feat!: / BREAKING CHANGE: | minor (0.3.0 → 0.4.0) | major |
When the public behaviour is considered stable, graduate to 1.0.0 (set bump-minor-pre-major: false in release-please-config.json, or land a commit with a Release-As: 1.0.0 footer); after that, breaking changes bump the major per strict SemVer. The Rust crate version in rust/Cargo.toml is kept in sync with the release version automatically by release-please.
Because tags created by GITHUB_TOKEN don't recursively trigger workflows, the Build workflow has a workflow_dispatch trigger so we can run it manually for a published tag — go to Actions → Build → Run workflow, enter the tag (e.g. v0.2.0), and the exe is built and attached to the matching Release. (For fully automated tag → exe upload, swap the release-please action's token for a PAT secret.)
Keyboard shortcuts
| Key | Action |
|---|
F5 | Refresh / re-scan |
Esc | Stop the running scan |
Backspace | Go to parent folder (when tree focused) |
Enter | Drill into the selected list row |
Del | Move selected items to Recycle Bin |
Notes on file counts
When MFT mode is active, hard-linked files (which WinSxS uses heavily) are counted once by their canonical name — that's why the file/folder totals can differ from a tree-walking scanner that counts each path separately. The MFT total reflects what's actually on disk.
Repo
Pushed and maintained at StruisICT/ClutterCutter.
© Struis ICT — all rights reserved.