Question about Ccleaner Smart Clean and "run ccleaner"

[Jon2211444]

Hi there I have a few questions about Ccleaner. I'm a bit weary of disk cleaning programs as I had a very bad experience with Avast disc cleaning features. It tried to delete everything in my windows/user profile/downloads folder, about 100gb of important materials and if I hadn't told it not to it would have deleted the entire thing. I was VERY distraught over this.

I installed Ccleaner 5.56 a few days ago on my primary computer. I didn't run any scans or anything, I noticed the "smart clean" feature enabled. I installed the free version, not the trail premium version. I was very concerned about this "smart clean" feature, fearing it would start deleting things from my computer without any input from me. Within about 5 minutes I completely uninstalled Ccleaner. I've been worried for several days now that it may have deleted important files from my PC, but I did some more research and apparently "smart clean" doesn't really do anything on the free edition besides tell you that there are junk files to clean? I tried installing ccleaner on a throw away computer that has no with important data. It seems so far I haven't been able to get smart clean to do much of anything on the free edition. Is it only the premium edition that smart clean will automatically delete files? I was also wondering about the "run ccleaner" option when you right click on the icon in the task bar, does that just run all of the options in "custom clean"?

My fear is that smart clean or run ccleaner will use other features (like the duplicate file delete) besides the custom clean settings (that just delete temp windows files and temp browser cache files) and start deleting random things that are important to me like video files and photos that take up large amounts of space etc. Is it likely from what I am describing that ccleaner didn't delete anything from my primary PC? I don't believe I hit the run ccleaner button as when I went into my windows temp folder I still have files from 2019 that haven't been accessed since 2019. Really need some input on this as I have been very worried about my files. I don't seem to see anything missing but I have a large amount of data that is often difficult for me to keep track of. I appreciate your help, thank you.

Edited April 11, 2020 by Jon2211444

[nukecad]

CCleaner will not clear your Downloads folder. (Unless you make a specific 'include' for it to do so, which takes 5 or 6 steps so it's not something you would do by mistake).
It does not consider your downloads folder to be junk.

You should not keep important files in the Downloads folder anyway. - Windows itself might delete them if you use Disk-Cleanup or Storage Sense.
Move important files to another folder(s).
You should also backup (make copies of) important files to an external drive or USB stick, just in case.

Smart Clean in CCleaner monitors your computer for the build up of junk files, you can turn it on or off by clicking on the 'Enable Smart Cleaning' box.
In the Free version it is limited to telling you if there is built up junk to clean, with the pro version you can change that to clean automatically.
(In either case it wouldn't touch your Downloads folder).

CCleaner has two modes- Health Check and Custom Clean.
You change between which you use as default by going to Options>Settings and setting the 'CCleaner Home Screen'.
(You can still run the other one at any time by clicking on it in the sidebar on the left of the main screen).

Health Check uses it's own rules to clean junk, you can't change those rules. It also runs the Startup Manager and Software Updater each time you use it.

Custom clean lets you set your own rules on which junk to clean by ticking/unticking the boxes in the lists.
(It also lets you include or exclude specific files or folders that you do or don't want cleaning, specific cookies that you want to keep, and other advanced settings).
It will not run the Startup Manager, Software Updater, Duplicate Finder (not deleter), or any other tool - if you want to use those you run them from the Tools.

If you have not clicked on 'Run Cleaner' in Custome clean, or 'Make it better' in Health Check, (or run any of the other tools) then CCleaner has not changed anything.

[Jon2211444]

Oh okay awesome thank you so much that explains a lot. I was wrong actually I installed the free 5.65 edition not 5.56 I assume all of the same stuff that you said applies to that version as well?

[nukecad]

I hadn't actually noticed your typo and had assumed that you were talking about v5.65, which is the latest version.

So all the above was written in regards to v5.65 anyway.

(v5.56 was a year ago, and it didn't have Health Check back then, but all the rest would be the same).