Ccleaner doesn't clean desktop shortcuts.

[ccjm]

Ccleaner doesn't clean desktop shortcuts.  Tried multiple times, even after closing and restarting the app.  Cleaner is up to date.  Windows 8.1, 64-bit,. 4 Gigs ram, 51 gigs of space left in hard drive out of 600+ gigs.  Laptop.  This was the first time I ticked the box to clean up desktop shortcuts.  Been using Ccleaner for 14+ years and this is the first time I wanted to clean shortcuts in the desktop.  

Edited December 17, 2021 by ccjm

[nukecad]

 Custom Clean will clean Desktop Shortcuts - but it only clears broken shortcuts. (Health Check won't touch even the broken ones).

If the shortcut is still valid then Custom Clean will leave it alone.
That's to prevent someone accidentally deleting all their shortcuts, which could be annoying to say the least.

eg. I have 20+ shortcuts on my desktop, they are all valid except for this one that I just made then deliberately removed the original file so that the shortcut no longer points to it.
Custom Clean finds that broken shortcut to be cleaned, it ignores all the valid ones.

PS. You definitely need to clear some space on that drive, it's generally rule of thumb that you have 15% free on a HDD, and 25% on a SDD unless it's overprovisioned then 10% (most modern SSDs are overprovisioned as standard) - but I guess that's why you are wanting to remove the shortcuts even though that's not going to clear much space.

[ccjm]

On 16/12/2021 at 23:19, nukecad said:

 Custom Clean will clean Desktop Shortcuts - but it only clears broken shortcuts. (Health Check won't touch even the broken ones).

If the shortcut is still valid then Custom Clean will leave it alone.
That's to prevent someone accidentally deleting all their shortcuts, which could be annoying to say the least.

eg. I have 20+ shortcuts on my desktop, they are all valid except for this one that I just made then deliberately removed the original file so that the shortcut no longer points to it.
Custom Clean finds that broken shortcut to be cleaned, it ignores all the valid ones.

PS. You definitely need to clear some space on that drive, it's generally rule of thumb that you have 15% free on a HDD, and 25% on a SDD unless it's overprovisioned then 10% (most modern SSDs are overprovisioned as standard) - but I guess that's why you are wanting to remove the shortcuts even though that's not going to clear much space.

THANK you very much for your helpful reply.  I understand. I just thought that Ccleaner would just delete the shortcuts that applications placed on my desktop after installation.  My desktop right now almost have no visible space for files.  It's full of folders, files, and shortcuts.   I rarely use the applications and when I do, I never access them through the shortcuts.  The shortcuts are adding clutter to my desktop.  I have to manually delete them.  My intention was never to save space as it is minimal savings...  But I understand the intended functionality of the tool now.  Thanks for that.

And yeah, I need to get a bigger hard drive.  Thanks for your help, nukecad.    

 

Edited December 23, 2021 by ccjm

[nukecad]

I know what you mean.

Many app installs now have a pre-selected tickbox for if you want a desktop shortcut or not, untick it and you won't get one.
But most still do it as standard and don't give you a choice about it.

As you say if you don't want a shortcut on the desktop then you have to delete the shortcut yourself.
Only you can know/decide which you want it on the desktop or not.

You could delete all desktop shortcuts at a stroke quite easily, but it would upset a lot of people if CCleaner let them do that by mistake.