I’ve been using V7 for several months, now, and it seems to me that it does not clean as well as the previous version(s) 6. Using V7 I get I cannot clean this or that, usually, something to do with Windows and sometimes one of the browsers. Rarely, if ever, did I get I have a similar problem with version 6. V7 maybe newer with new user interface, but, in my opinion it’s not better. Just my observation. Would be nice if I could go back to V6.
Hi @arejfour,
The “unable to clean” messages you’re seeing in V7 are actually quite common and don’t mean CCleaner is cleaning less effectively than V6 — it’s being more transparent about what it can and can’t access at the time of the clean.
The two most common causes are:
1. Browser data (cookies, cache, history) When Chrome, Edge, or Firefox are open — or still running as a background process — their database files are locked and can’t be cleaned. When CCleaner shows the “Close these running programs?” dialog, clicking Close programs (rather than Skip) should resolve this. Even if you’ve closed the browser window, it may still be running in the background. You can check via Task Manager → Details tab and end any remaining chrome.exe, msedge.exe, or firefox.exe processes before running a clean.
2. Windows system folders (Temp Files, Event Trace Logs, etc.) Some Windows system files are actively being written to by the OS and can’t be deleted while in use. This is expected behaviour — CCleaner will clean what it can access. One tip that can help here is to run CCleaner shortly after starting your PC, before other applications have had a chance to start writing to those files — you’ll often find fewer items are locked and more gets cleaned as a result.