🧹 QuickA-Cleanup

Smart Quick Access Navigation Pane cleaner for Windows Explorer — dual GUI + CLI, self-contained, and fast.

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✨ Socials & Stars

📦 Repository Information

❤️ Made With Love Using

📜 Licensed Under

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👤 For Regular Users

What does this do?

When you open File Explorer, the left sidebar shows a list of folders — things like OneDrive, Desktop, Downloads, and entries left behind by apps you've already uninstalled. Windows gives you no easy built-in way to remove these leftovers.

QuickA-Cleanup scans for those entries and lets you remove them in a few clicks. It backs everything up automatically before touching anything, and restarts Explorer when done — available as both a modern GUI app and a command-line tool.

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🚀 Getting Started — 3 Steps

1. Download

Go to the Latest Release and grab the right file for your PC:

I have a...	GUI	CLI
Normal Windows PC (most people)	QuickA-Cleanup-GUI-VX.X.X-win-x64.zip	QuickA-Cleanup-CLI-VX.X.X-win-x64.exe
Older 32-bit PC	QuickA-Cleanup-GUI-VX.X.X-win-x86.zip	QuickA-Cleanup-CLI-VX.X.X-win-x86.exe
Windows on ARM	QuickA-Cleanup-GUI-VX.X.X-win-arm64.zip	QuickA-Cleanup-CLI-VX.X.X-win-arm64.exe

Not sure? Grab win-x64 — it works on most Windows PCs. Use the GUI unless you prefer the terminal.

2. Run it

GUI: extract the .zip to its own folder, then run QuickA-Cleanup-GUI.exe inside it (the app needs its supporting files alongside it — don't move just the .exe on its own). CLI: just run the .exe directly, no extraction needed.

If Windows shows a SmartScreen warning click More info → Run anyway. The app will ask for Administrator permission — required to read and modify registry entries.

3. Clean up

• Click Scan to find navigation pane entries
• Tick the ones you want to remove
• Click Remove Selected and confirm

Explorer restarts automatically and the entries will be gone. ✅

Note

Changed your mind? A backup file named QuickA-Backup-<timestamp>.reg is automatically saved next to the app every time you remove something (in the GUI's folder, or next to the .exe for CLI). Double-click it and click Yes to restore everything instantly.

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🏷️ What Gets Flagged Automatically?

QuickA-Cleanup recognises these common entries and highlights them as Bloatware in the item list:

Name	Added by
OneDrive — Personal	Microsoft OneDrive
OneDrive for Business	Microsoft 365 / work accounts
SharePoint	Microsoft 365

Everything else shows as Unknown — typically entries left by third-party apps.

Tip

Essential system folders (Desktop, Documents, Downloads, Pictures, Music, Videos) are always hidden from the list and cannot be accidentally removed.

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❓ FAQ

Is this safe to use?

Yes. Before removing anything the tool saves a .reg backup automatically. If you want to undo changes, double-click the backup file and click Yes. You can also use Dry Run mode to preview everything before committing.

Will this delete my actual files or folders?

No. It only removes the shortcut entries from the navigation pane. Your files and folders on disk are never touched.

Why does it need Administrator permission?

Navigation pane entries are stored in the Windows Registry. Reading and writing registry keys requires elevated permissions — the same as installing or uninstalling software.

File Explorer looks wrong after running it — what do I do?

The tool restarts Explorer automatically. If something still looks off, restart it manually:

1. Press Ctrl + Shift + Esc → Task Manager
2. Find Windows Explorer → Right-click → Restart

To restore removed entries, find the QuickA-Backup-*.reg file next to the app (in the GUI's folder, or next to the .exe for CLI), double-click it, and click Yes.

SmartScreen is blocking the app — is it a virus?

No. SmartScreen warns about any .exe without a paid code-signing certificate. QuickA-Cleanup is fully open source — every line of code is in this repository. Click More info → Run anyway.

How do I test it without risking anything?

Use Settings → Testing in the GUI — download and install dummy test entries with one click, scan to see them appear, then remove them. Or use the testpins.reg file from this repo directly: double-click to import, then use QuickA-Cleanup to remove them.

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🔧 For Advanced Users & Developers

📋 Full Feature List

GUI:

• Native WinUI 3 window — real Windows 11 caption buttons (minimize/maximize/close, snap layouts included), Mica backdrop
• Light / Dark / "Match Windows" theme, plus a picker of 8 accent colors that apply live across the app
• Three always-visible status indicator dots (Bloat / Test pins / Errors)
• Item list with a colored type badge per row (Bloatware / Test / Unknown), native list add/remove animation
• Progress bar + live sub-text during scan and removal
• Dry Run and Backup toggles in the scan bar
• Settings is a native dialog (ContentDialog), not a separate window

Settings dialog:

• Appearance section — theme mode + accent color swatches
• Testing section — download + install + remove testpins with live status text
• Log section — TRACE/DEV/WARN/ERROR level filter, expandable log viewer, clear button, writes to QuickA-Cleanup.log

Core:

• Parallel registry scanning via Parallel.ForEach + ConcurrentBag
• Known bloatware tagging (OneDrive, OneDrive for Business, SharePoint)
• Testpin detection on startup with status bar warning
• Protected system folder blacklist (Desktop, Documents, Downloads, Pictures, Music, Videos)
• User-defined custom folder protection list in ItemFilter.cs
• Automatic .reg backup before any deletion
• Explorer restart after removal
• Custom app icon (explorer_clean_x64x64.ico)

CLI:

• Same scan/remove/backup/dry-run/restore logic as GUI
• --dry-run, --no-backup, --help flags
• Color-coded table output with bloatware tagging
• Trimmed, self-contained single-file publish

🗂️ How It Works — Registry Internals

Windows stores navigation pane entries under:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace

Each sub-key is a GUID. The (Default) value is the display name shown in File Explorer. QuickA-Cleanup enumerates these sub-keys, filters out protected GUIDs and user-defined custom folder names, then presents the remainder as removable.

Removal is done via Registry.CurrentUser.OpenSubKey(..., writable: true) → DeleteSubKeyTree. The backup step serialises the keys into a valid .reg file using Unicode encoding before any deletion.

Explorer is restarted by calling Process.Kill() on all explorer.exe instances, sleeping 800ms, then Process.Start("explorer.exe").

🛠️ Customisation Guide

All filtering logic lives in Core/Services/ItemFilter.cs.

Add a GUID to the protected blacklist (never shown, never removable):

private static readonly HashSet<string> Blacklist =
    new(StringComparer.OrdinalIgnoreCase)
    {
        "{YOUR-GUID-HERE}",  // description
        // ...
    };

Register a known bloatware entry (shown with amber highlight and "Bloatware" tag):

private static readonly Dictionary<string, string> KnownItems =
    new(StringComparer.OrdinalIgnoreCase)
    {
        { "{YOUR-GUID-HERE}", "Friendly Display Name" },
        // ...
    };

Protect a custom folder by name (case-insensitive, uses Contains):

private static readonly string[] CustomFolders =
{
    "My Folder Name",
    // ...
};

Finding a GUID: open regedit.exe and navigate to:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace

Each sub-key is a GUID. The (Default) value is the display name.

📦 Build Instructions

Requires .NET SDK 9.0.

Building the GUI also requires the Windows App SDK tooling — in Visual Studio, the "Windows application development" workload; in VS Code, the C# Dev Kit extension plus the .NET SDK is enough (no live XAML designer/hot-reload, but builds and runs fine).

GUI — win-x64:

dotnet publish QuickA-Cleanup-GUI\QuickA-Cleanup-GUI.csproj -c Release -r win-x64 --self-contained true -p:WindowsPackageType=None -p:DebugType=None -p:DebugSymbols=false

Output is a self-contained folder (not a single .exe — WinUI 3 doesn't support PublishSingleFile). Zip the output folder for distribution, or run QuickA-Cleanup-GUI.exe directly from inside it.

CLI — win-x64:

dotnet publish QuickA-Cleanup-CLI\QuickA-Cleanup-CLI.csproj -c Release -r win-x64 --self-contained true -p:PublishSingleFile=true -p:IncludeNativeLibrariesForSelfExtract=true -p:PublishTrimmed=true -p:DebugType=None -p:DebugSymbols=false

Replace -r win-x64 with -r win-x86 or -r win-arm64 for other targets.

⚠️ Do not change the GUI's net9.0-windows10.0.19041.0 target framework or the CLI's net9.0-windows — both are required for their respective UI frameworks.

🚀 CLI Flags

QuickA-Cleanup-CLI.exe [options]

Flag	Description
--dry-run	Preview all changes — nothing written to registry
--no-backup	Skip the automatic .reg backup
--help / -h	Show usage and exit

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🐛 Issues & Support

Found a bug? Have a suggestion?

• 🐛 Report an Issue
• 💬 Join Discord

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📄 License

This project is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0.

• ✅ Commercial use, distribution, and modification allowed
• ⚠️ Must disclose source and changes
• ⚠️ Derivative works must be open-source under the same license

Read the full license here.

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⚠️ Disclaimer

By using, editing, or publishing this tool you acknowledge that you have read and understood the license terms and agree to be bound by them.

Modifying the Windows Registry carries inherent risk. Always use the built-in backup feature before making changes. Use at your own discretion.

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💫 Star History

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Made with 💜 by @Ash1421