Notes 
Shredding files and wiping unallocated disk space to minimize data remanence.
Reviewed by Marco Wollank
BleachBit
bleachbit.org 4.7 (6)
Rate BleachBit: No account needed
Threat level
Hardened
A hardened pick. Worth the effort once you have chosen to shrink your footprint on purpose. Enough for most people. Threat levels
Our take
Open-source and free, with the one feature that actually matters for privacy here: shredding files and wiping free space so deleted data doesn’t linger. That focus is its strength and its limit, since it’s a cleaner that can erase, not a polished tune-up suite. The interface is utilitarian and it’ll happily let you delete something you wanted if you tick the wrong box. Pick it when secure deletion is the point, not when you want a pretty Mac optimizer.
GitHub at a glance
bleachbit/bleachbit GPL-3.0 antiforensicsbleachbitccleaner-alternativecleanercross-platformdesktop-appdisk-cleanerfreegplv3guilinuxlinux-desktopopen-sourceprivacypythonsecuritysystem-cleanertuiwindowswindows-desktop
Stars
7,363
+104 this week
Forks
486
58 watching
Last commit
today
healthy
Latest release
v6.0.6
13d ago, 22 total
Star history
Issues
83% closed
279
open
1,364
closed
+32 / -45
opened / closed, last 4 weeks
Opened vs closed, last 12 weeks
Commits, last 26 weeks
1,334 commits, active 25 of 26 weeks
219 contributors since Mar 2014
Languages
- Python 75.2%
- NSIS 12.7%
- CSS 7.5%
- Other 4.6%
Updated daily from the GitHub API. Star tracking since Jun 10, 2026.
Website at a glance
bleachbit.org
B score 70
Solid website security headers
Graded by Mozilla HTTP Observatory, tested 2d ago
Inspect this site yourself
Measures the security configuration of the tool's own website, not the privacy of the product itself. A strong tool can still score low here.
BleachBit alternatives
CleanMyMac & PC Available for Windows and Mac. Beautiful designed user interface, perfect for beginners and people who appreciate a well-designed software. Cleans up junk files and speeds up…
Gemini 2 Detect and delete duplicates. It's smart, laser accurate, and recovers tons of space on your Mac.
Czkawka No privacy features but a neat little tool to declutter your computer and free disk space.
ExifCleaner Removes metadata for the most popular image and video formats. It also supports PDF files and comes with batch-processing to process multiple files at once. Drag and Drop…
ExifEraser File support: JPEG, PNG and WebP.
Metapho Strips out metadata or remove location data only. Share without metadata just before sharing.
BleachBit license, in plain English
GPL-3.0 Strong copyleft
Free to use and modify, but anything you distribute that is built on it must also be open under the same license.
Permits
- Commercial use
- Modification
- Distribution
- Patent use
- Private use
Requires
- Disclose source
- Same license
- State changes
- License and copyright notice
Does not provide
- Liability cover
- Warranty
Why it matters: Strong copyleft keeps every distributed version open. A vendor cannot fold this into a closed product and ship it without releasing their changes.
Plain-language summary of the project's license, not legal advice. Read the full text for the exact terms.