RAMKeeper Ashish Patel

cleaner memory optimizer ram tray windows

Use this command to install RAMKeeper:

winget install --id=ashishpatel26.RAMKeeper -e

RAMKeeper is a lightweight (163 KB) Windows RAM cleaner that purges the standby/cached memory list via NtSetSystemInformation, immediately reclaiming memory without rebooting. Runs silently in the system tray. Features: status window with RAM sparkline and clean history, global hotkey Ctrl+Alt+R, auto-clean (threshold/interval/idle/scheduled), process exclusions, per-clean log, balloon notifications, start-with-Windows. No runtime dependencies, no installer required.

Lightweight Windows RAM Cleaner 163 KB · No runtime dependencies · No ads · Open source

RAMKeeper

Lightweight Windows RAM cleaner — 163 KB, no runtime dependencies, no ads.

Purges the Windows standby/cached memory list that Task Manager can't touch. Runs silently in the system tray.

Features

Tray-only (no taskbar button, no bloat)
Clean Now — hotkey Ctrl+Alt+R or double-click tray icon
Auto-clean when RAM exceeds threshold, on interval, on idle, or at boot
Status window — left-click tray: color-coded RAM %, 5-min sparkline, clean history
Color-coded tray icon — green / yellow / red by RAM usage
Balloon notifications (configurable MB threshold, silenceable)
Process exclusion — skip specific exe names from working-set trim
Scheduled clean — daily at a configured hour:minute
Per-clean log at %APPDATA%\RAMKeeper\clean.log
Single .exe — portable, no installer required
Open source, MIT licensed

Download

Latest Release →

Download RAMKeeper.exe from the Assets section and run as Administrator.

Installation

Option 1: Portable (recommended)

Download RAMKeeper.exe from Releases
Right-click → Run as administrator (required for standby list purge)
Tray icon appears — right-click for menu

Option 2: Start with Windows (no UAC prompt)

Run once as admin, then right-click tray → Settings → enable Start with Windows. This adds RAMKeeper to your registry Run key so it auto-starts.

For zero UAC prompts, create a Scheduled Task instead:

Task Scheduler → Create Task
  General: Run with highest privileges, configure for Windows 10
  Trigger: At log on
  Action: Start program → path\to\RAMKeeper.exe

Usage

Action	How
Clean RAM now	`Ctrl+Alt+R` or double-click tray icon
Open status window	Left-click tray icon
Toggle auto-clean	Right-click tray → Auto-clean
Settings	Right-click tray → Settings
Exit	Right-click tray → Exit

Configuration

Config file at %APPDATA%\RAMKeeper\config.ini (created on first run):

[Clean]
threshold_percent  = 80    ; clean when RAM usage exceeds this %
interval_minutes   = 30    ; force clean every N minutes (0 = disabled)
on_idle_minutes    = 5     ; clean when user idle N+ minutes (0 = disabled)
on_boot_delay      = 60    ; clean once N seconds after launch (0 = disabled)
silent_mode        = 0     ; 1 = suppress balloon notifications
auto_clean         = 1     ; 0 = disable all automatic cleaning
exclude_list       =       ; comma-sep exe names to skip (e.g. game.exe, vm.exe)
clean_hour         = -1    ; scheduled daily clean hour 0-23 (-1 = disabled)
clean_minute       = 0     ; scheduled clean minute 0-59
notify_min_mb      = 10    ; min freed MB to show balloon
show_status_on_clean = 0   ; 1 = open status window after each clean

[App]
start_with_windows = 0    ; 1 = add to registry Run key

Build from Source

Prerequisites

Tool	Install
Visual Studio 2022 Build Tools	`winget install Microsoft.VisualStudio.2022.BuildTools --override "--add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.VCTools --includeRecommended --quiet"`
CMake 3.20+	`winget install Kitware.CMake`
Ninja	`winget install Ninja-build.Ninja`

See setup-cpp.md for full setup guide including MinGW alternative.

Build

Open Developer Command Prompt for VS 2022:

git clone https://github.com/ashishpatel26/RAMKeeper.git
cd RAMKeeper
cmake -B build -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake --build build --config Release

Output: build\RAMKeeper.exe

Verify no runtime dependencies

dumpbin /dependents build\RAMKeeper.exe

Expected: only KERNEL32.dll, USER32.dll, SHELL32.dll, ADVAPI32.dll.

How It Works

Windows keeps unused pages in a "standby list" as a disk cache. This is useful but means RAM shows 80-95% used even when idle. RAMKeeper calls:

EmptyWorkingSet on every process — trims private working sets
NtSetSystemInformation(MemoryFlushModifiedList) — flushes modified pages to disk
NtSetSystemInformation(MemoryPurgeStandbyList) — clears the standby cache
SetSystemFileCacheSize(-1,-1,0) — resets file system cache size

Steps 2-4 require administrator privileges.

Why Not Use Existing Tools?

	RAMKeeper	Wise Memory Optimizer	Mem Reduct
Size	163 KB	50 MB	1.5 MB
No ads	✅	❌	✅
Open source	✅	❌	❌
Tray-only UI	✅	❌	⚠
Hotkey	✅	❌	⚠
Status window	✅	❌	❌
Process exclusion	✅	❌	❌
Scheduled clean	✅	⚠	⚠

Testing

UI tests use pywinauto to drive the Win32 app. Must run from an elevated (Administrator) terminal.

uv run pytest tests/ -v

Tests cover: launch, single-instance guard, global hotkey, settings dialog fields, settings cancel, status window open/ESC, clean via WM_COMMAND, and graceful exit.

License

MIT — see LICENSE