System Cache Cleaner

CLI tool to clear temporary and junk files from your Windows system.

Clears files from known safe locations — Temp folders and Windows Prefetch — with full control over what gets deleted. Built with extensibility for Mac/Linux support in the future.

Requirements

• Node.js 16 or higher
• Windows OS (Mac/Linux support planned)

Installation

npm install -g sys-cache-clear

Or run directly from the project folder:

npm install
node bin/sys-cache-clear.js --help

Commands

sys-cache-clear list

Lists all known target cache folders without scanning them.

$ sys-cache-clear list

Cache Targets

  temp         C:\Users\You\AppData\Local\Temp
  prefetch     C:\Windows\Prefetch

sys-cache-clear scan

Read-only scan. Shows file count and total size for each target folder. Does not delete anything.

$ sys-cache-clear scan

Scan Results

  ✔ temp scanned
    📁 temp — 1,247 files, 523.41 MB
  ⚠ Skipping "prefetch" — requires Administrator privileges.

  Total: 1,247 files, 523.41 MB

sys-cache-clear clean

Scans all targets, shows a summary, asks for confirmation, then deletes files.

$ sys-cache-clear clean

Scanning targets...

  ✔ temp — 1,247 files, 523.41 MB

  Found 1,247 files (523.41 MB) across 1 target(s).

? Delete 1,247 files (523.41 MB) from 1 target(s)? (y/N)

Options

| Flag | Description | |------|-------------| | --yes, -y | Skip the confirmation prompt | | --dry-run | Show exactly what would be deleted, but don't delete anything | | --target <name> | Only clean a specific target (e.g. temp or prefetch) |

Examples

# Skip confirmation
sys-cache-clear clean --yes

# Preview what would be deleted
sys-cache-clear clean --dry-run

# Clean only the temp folder
sys-cache-clear clean --target temp

# Clean prefetch (requires Administrator)
sys-cache-clear clean --target prefetch

sys-cache-clear --version

Prints the current version.

sys-cache-clear --help

Shows help text with all available commands and options.

Prefetch & Administrator

The Windows Prefetch folder (C:\Windows\Prefetch) requires Administrator privileges to access. If you run sys-cache-clear without elevation, Prefetch will be skipped automatically with a warning message. To include it:

1. Open Command Prompt or PowerShell as Administrator
2. Run sys-cache-clear clean

Targets

| Name | Path | Notes | |------|------|-------| | temp | %TEMP% | User's temp folder | | tmp | %TMP% | Only included if different from %TEMP% | | prefetch | %WINDIR%\Prefetch | Requires admin |

The tool never touches folders outside this defined list.

Project Structure

sys-cache-clear/
├── bin/
│   └── sys-cache-clear.js    # CLI entry point (commander)
├── src/
│   ├── targets.js       # OS-specific target definitions
│   ├── scanner.js       # Recursive file scanner
│   ├── cleaner.js       # File deletion with per-file error handling
│   ├── prompt.js        # Confirmation prompt (inquirer)
│   ├── logger.js        # Colored output (chalk)
│   └── utils.js         # formatBytes, isAdmin
├── package.json
└── README.md

Safety

• No guessing: Only explicitly defined target folders are ever touched.
• Per-file try/catch: A single locked or permission-denied file is skipped — it never crashes the operation.
• Dry-run support: Always preview before deleting with --dry-run.
• Confirmation by default: The clean command asks before deleting unless --yes is passed.

Contributing

Found a bug or have a suggestion? Open an issue or submit a pull request on GitHub.

License

MIT

Links

• npm package
• GitHub repo
• Issues