Ccleaner should show a warning/confirmation when selecting the Windows Downloads

[nikos3194]

Yesterday I was staying up very late and when checking the options I associated the "Windows Downloads" cleaning option with the downloads of updates and temporary files of the opetating system. I never imagined that I would end up deleting such an important folder where all browsers offer to save practically everything. I really think that some warning should be placed that the path of the downloads to be deleted is located in C:\Users\[username]\Downloads because I have seen other threads where other people had this same issue. Fortunately I realized shortly after, pulled the power plug and was able to recover most of my data using Recuva with my HDD connected as guest in another PC, since if I let too much time pass the data would have been overwritten by system activity.

I've been using Ccleaner for years with the same settings and just because it occurred to me to fiddle with the "new" options, it's frustrating to me that I've made such a rookie mistake.

I say again that the program should have a warning showing the full path and a confirmation just as it does in the option to clean the network passwords.

[Andavari]

If it's going to clean such things it should definitely warn before pulling the trigger.

I know when using the community winapp2.ini file it has a warning feature. Seems all too similar to a few years ago when Microsoft had in Win10 the ability to clean/delete everything in the Downloads folder in Disk Cleanup that would cause severe grief if unknowingly used, and Microsoft eventually removed the ability to clean the Downloads folder for obvious reasons.

 

[nukecad]

I believe that CCleaner was following Windows Disk Clean-up when they added that 'Downloads' section to Custom Clean.
It is actually more granular than Disk Clean-up was, that just deleted everything in the Downloads folder.

I was one of the many who did get caught out when Windows first put it in Disk Clean-up without any real notice, just a single line lost in the update notes, and it was ticked by default in Disk Clean-up.

When Microsoft realised the problems that could cause they removed it, CCleaner didn't remove their more granular version because it can be useful.

But I agree that it should have a clear warning if used, I seem to recall that we've suggested/advised that to the staff before.
(There again many people seem to ignore such warnings anyway and just click through without reading them).

[nikos3194]

@Andavari @nukecad Thanks for your answers. I hope the development staff can pay attention to my request.