Help
43 answers, grouped by topic. Pick a category, or read straight through.
Getting started
What is Clean Rabbit?
Clean Rabbit is a free desktop app that reclaims disk space. It bundles six tools: a cleaner for application caches, junk and temporary files, logs and incomplete downloads, a duplicate finder, a large and old file browser, an app uninstaller that also clears leftovers, a startup items manager, and optional scheduled scans. It runs on macOS, Windows and Linux, and everything it does happens on your own machine.
How much does Clean Rabbit cost?
Nothing. Clean Rabbit is free. There is no trial, no subscription and no paid tier, and neither the app nor this site ever asks for a card. There is an optional Contribute button if you would like to put something towards development. It suggests no amount, unlocks nothing, and nothing changes whether you use it or not.
Which operating systems does Clean Rabbit support?
macOS 11 Big Sur or later, as a universal build that runs natively on both Apple Silicon and Intel Macs. Windows 10 and Windows 11 on 64-bit x86. And 64-bit Linux with a reasonably current desktop, shipped as a .deb package and an AppImage. The installer is around 10 MB on every platform, because Clean Rabbit is built with Tauri and Rust and uses the web view your system already ships rather than bundling a whole browser engine.
Why do I need an account for a free app?
An account lets us tie your copy to you rather than to a machine, tell you about security fixes and important updates, and give you a way to have your data deleted on request. Registration needs only an email address. There is no password to choose or remember, because we email you a sign-in link instead.
How do I sign in?
Clean Rabbit opens a page in your browser where you enter your email address. We send a one-time link to it, and opening that link confirms it is you. The desktop app then signs itself in a few seconds later, with nothing for you to copy or paste. The link works once, and the whole request expires after 15 minutes.
What is Contribute?
An optional way to put something towards Clean Rabbit’s development, and nothing more than that. There is no suggested amount, nothing is unlocked, there is no paid tier, and the app behaves identically whether you contribute or not. The button hands you to Stripe’s own hosted payment page, so no card details are ever entered in the app or on this site and we never see them. If you are signed in, your email address is passed through so there is one field fewer to type, and you can change it on Stripe’s page before paying.
Using Clean Rabbit
What does the disk cleaner look at?
A fixed set of well known clutter locations for your operating system: application caches, junk and temporary files, log files, and downloads that were never finished. It does not roam your whole disk, and it does not touch your documents, photos or projects.
Is it safe to delete application caches?
Generally yes. A cache is a copy of something the app can recreate, such as thumbnails, downloaded assets or compiled fragments, so removing it costs you a slightly slower next launch rather than any data. Two things are worth knowing. Some apps keep unsaved state in cache-like folders, so quit your apps before a big clean. And Clean Rabbit skips anything modified in the last ten minutes, precisely because it may still be in use.
How does Clean Rabbit decide that two files are duplicates?
In three passes. It groups candidates by exact byte size, then compares a partial hash of the start of each file, and only then computes a full BLAKE3 hash of whatever survives. A set is reported only when the full hashes match, which means the files are identical byte for byte rather than merely similar in name or appearance.
Can Clean Rabbit delete every copy of a duplicate file?
No. One copy of each set is always kept, and the interface will not let you select them all. Duplicate deletions are also fenced to the folder you chose to scan, so nothing outside it can be touched.
What are Large & Old Files for?
Reclaiming serious space. The tool surfaces your biggest files and the ones you have not opened in six months or more, sorted so that the obvious candidates rise to the top: old disk images, forgotten video exports, stale virtual machines. Nothing here is deleted automatically. It is a list for you to make decisions about.
How is the uninstaller different from dragging an app to the bin?
Removing the application itself leaves its caches, preferences and support files behind, which is often hundreds of megabytes for a single app. The uninstaller finds those leftovers, shows you what it found, and removes them along with the app. Apps that are part of the operating system are marked Protected and cannot be removed by anyone, ourselves included. Apps installed with administrator rights, such as Mac App Store apps, can be removed, and macOS will ask for your password with its own dialog when you do.
Can I turn a startup item back on after disabling it?
Yes. Startup Items shows what launches when you log in and lets you switch entries off, and anything you disable can be switched back on from the same screen. Nothing is deleted, so it is safe to experiment.
What do scheduled scans do?
If you turn them on, Clean Rabbit runs a quiet background check, weekly unless you change it, and notifies you when clutter has built up again. It lives in the menu bar on macOS and in the system tray on Windows and Linux. It never cleans anything on its own: it tells you, and you decide. For most people a clean once a month is plenty, since caches simply rebuild themselves.
Safety & privacy
Does Clean Rabbit upload my file names?
No. Scanning happens entirely on your own machine, and your file names, folder paths and file contents are never uploaded to us or to anyone else. The personal data we hold is your account email address, basic sign-in metadata and your marketing preferences, plus a summary of each clean if you switch on the optional activity history.
What is the activity history, and what does it record?
It is an optional record of what each clean amounted to, so your history shows on every device and on your account page. Each entry holds four things: which tool ran, how many items it affected, how many bytes it freed, and when. It never holds a file name, a folder path, or anything derived from them, and there is nowhere in the record to put one. It is off unless you turn it on, in the app under Settings, and switching it off stops it immediately. Deleting your account deletes the history with it.
Can I get my files back after a clean?
Yes, if you kept the default. Every clean asks first whether to move items to the Trash or Recycle Bin, which is the default and is fully recoverable, or to delete them permanently, which is not. If you chose the default, open your Trash or Recycle Bin and restore from there. If you chose permanent deletion, restore from your backup, because we cannot recover it for you.
What stops the cleaner deleting the wrong thing?
A path fence enforced in the Rust engine, underneath the interface. Every path is canonicalised and checked against the locations that were actually scanned, and anything outside them is refused outright. Files modified in the last ten minutes are also skipped, on the assumption that something is still using them.
Does Clean Rabbit need administrator or root access?
Not for scanning or cleaning. It runs with your normal user permissions, inside your own account. There is one exception, and it is deliberate: removing an app that was installed with administrator rights, which includes everything from the Mac App Store, makes macOS show its own password prompt, exactly as Finder would. That dialog belongs to macOS. Your password goes to the system and never to Clean Rabbit, which has no password field anywhere and never will. On macOS the system may also ask you to grant access to particular folders the first time, which is a standard permission prompt rather than an escalation.
Can I turn off the usage statistics the app sends?
Yes. Open Settings in Clean Rabbit and turn off "Send anonymous usage statistics", which stops it immediately. It is on by default, and what it sends is deliberately thin: a few aggregate events such as which tool was opened and whether a scan completed. The same switch also controls error reports, the short notices the app sends us if an update or a sign-in fails, which are categories from a fixed list rather than message text. There is no persistent device identifier, and nothing ever includes your file names, paths, sizes or contents. Scan results and file information are never sent, whatever the setting says.
Does the website track me?
Only if you say yes. The site uses Google Analytics 4 to count page views and downloads, and it will not set an analytics cookie or even load Google’s script until you choose Accept on the cookie banner. Declining sits right next to Accept and costs you nothing, and if your browser sends a Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track signal we treat that as a no and never ask. To change your mind later, choose Cookie settings at the foot of any page. There is no advertising on this site and no ad tracking of any kind.
Account & marketing emails
Do I have to accept marketing emails to use Clean Rabbit?
No, and we would not be allowed to require it. Making a service conditional on marketing consent is not valid consent under UK GDPR. You can use every feature of the app while opted out of everything optional, and the choice is presented to you at registration rather than buried afterwards.
What emails will I receive?
Three kinds. Service emails, which you cannot opt out of while you hold an account, meaning sign-in links, security notices and changes to the terms or the privacy policy. Emails about Clean Rabbit and similar White Rabbit Foundry tools, which you can switch off at any moment. And broader marketing and product news, which is entirely optional and stays off unless you tick the box yourself.
Is there an iPhone or Android version?
No, and there cannot usefully be one. Phones sandbox every app to its own storage, so an app there cannot see another app’s caches, remove its leftovers, uninstall it or manage what starts up. That is most of what Clean Rabbit does. Your phone already handles its own storage for the same reason: iPhone Storage on iOS, and the storage manager on Android. If you open this site on a phone we will offer to email you the download link so you can pick it up on your computer, and opening that link sets your account up ready for the first launch.
How do I uninstall Clean Rabbit?
Open Settings in the app and choose Remove, under "Remove Clean Rabbit". That matters more than dragging the app to the Trash, because it undoes the changes Clean Rabbit made outside itself: every startup item you disabled is switched back on, it stops opening at login, you are signed out and its settings are deleted. It then tells you how to remove the app itself, which on a Mac is dragging it from Applications to the Trash. Deleting the app without doing this first leaves any disabled startup items disabled, which is the one thing that would not fix itself.
How does Clean Rabbit update itself?
It checks for a newer version shortly after it starts, and tells you in a bar across the top if there is one. Nothing downloads or installs until you choose to, and the update is checked against our signing key before it is applied, so a build that did not come from us is refused. You can turn the automatic check off in Settings, where there is also a Check now button.
Does Clean Rabbit need an internet connection?
Only occasionally. Scanning and cleaning happen entirely on your own machine and work with no connection at all. What needs the network is your account: Clean Rabbit re-checks your sign-in whenever it can, and keeps working offline for 30 days between successful checks. Go longer than that without connecting and it will ask you to sign in again. The app tells you how many days are left whenever it notices you are offline.
Is signing in to the website the same as signing in to the app?
It is the same account, but two separate sign-ins. The desktop app keeps its own session on your machine and the website keeps one in your browser, so signing in to one does not sign you in to the other. Start an app sign-in from the app itself; start a website sign-in from the account page. If you are already signed in to the app and want the website too, just ask for a link on the account page using the same address.
How do I change my email preferences?
Either place. Open Account in the app, or sign in on the account page here, and use the two switches. They are independent, so you can keep updates about Clean Rabbit and turn broader marketing off, or turn both off. Every marketing email also carries a one-click unsubscribe link that works without signing in.
How do I see which computers are signed in, or sign one out?
The Account tile in the app and the account page here both list every computer with the Clean Rabbit app signed in to your account, with the name of the machine and when it last connected. Each one has a Sign out button, and there is a Sign out everywhere option for the case where a laptop has gone missing, which also ends your browser session immediately. Signing a device out does not touch anything on that machine: your files, your settings and any startup items you disabled all stay exactly as they are, and it simply asks for your email address again the next time it connects.
Where can I get a copy of my data?
Open Account in the app and choose Export, or sign in on the account page here and choose "Download my data". You get a JSON file containing your account record, your preferences, your sign-in metadata and the full history of consent changes, which is everything we hold about you. Your scans never leave your machine, so there is nothing about your files in it.
How do I get my data deleted?
Open Account in the app, or sign in on the account page here, choose to delete your account, and type the confirmation phrase. Your account and profile are removed straight away. A minimal record may be kept for up to 12 months for accounting, legal and dispute-resolution purposes, after which it is permanently deleted. Clean Rabbit keeps working on your machine, but you will need to register again to sign in.
Troubleshooting
The clean says some items could not be removed. What happened?
The completion screen names the reason rather than guessing at one. The system refused permission, which usually means the operating system has marked those items as its own and will not let any app touch them. Or they sat outside the folders Clean Rabbit is allowed to touch, and the safety fence refused them. Or they may be open in another app, in which case quitting it and cleaning again normally clears them. A separate, quieter line tells you how many items were already gone before the clean reached them. That is not a failure at all: it is the outcome you asked for, and macOS clears its own caches often enough that it happens on almost every clean.
Where can I see what the app actually did?
Settings has a Diagnostics section with the app’s own log, and buttons to show, copy or clear it. It records what happened rather than what was touched: file names, folder paths and email addresses are stripped out as each line is written, so they are not in the copy on your disk either. Nothing is ever sent to us automatically. If you email us about a problem, pasting that log in is the single most useful thing you can do.
Does macOS warn about Clean Rabbit when I open it?
It should not. The macOS build is signed with a White Rabbit Foundry Developer ID certificate and notarised by Apple, which means Apple has scanned it and macOS opens it with no prompt at all. If you do see a warning about an unidentified developer, or that the app is damaged, you almost certainly have an old build from before signing was in place. Delete it, download again from this site, and it will open normally. Do not work around that warning: for anything downloaded from anywhere, it is worth taking seriously.
Why did Windows SmartScreen block the installer?
Because the Windows installer is not code-signed. The macOS build is, but Windows code-signing is a separate certificate with an ongoing cost, and we are holding off on it until there is real demand for the Windows version. SmartScreen therefore says it cannot identify the publisher, which is about the certificate rather than about anything the app does. Choose "More info", then "Run anyway" if you are happy to proceed, and only ever do that for software you actually trust.
Why will the Linux AppImage not start?
It usually needs the executable bit, so run chmod +x on the downloaded file and then launch it. Some minimal distributions also need FUSE installed before AppImages will mount. If you would rather avoid that, install the .deb package instead on Debian and Ubuntu systems.
Why does my sign-in link say it is invalid or expired?
Sign-in links are single use, and the request behind them expires 15 minutes after the app starts it. Opening the same link twice, or opening an older one after asking for a newer one, produces that message. Start sign-in again from the app and use the most recent email. It can also happen when an email client rewrites links for security scanning, which is exactly the case the six-digit code in the same email is there for: the code is untouched by link rewriting, so type that instead. If no email arrives at all, check your spam folder and your promotions tab first.
Can I sign in without clicking a link?
Yes. The sign-in email carries a six-digit code as well as a link, and either one works. In the app, choose "Email me a code instead" on the sign-in screen and type the code straight in, so the browser never has to open at all. On the website, the code box appears on the same page that told you to check your inbox. Codes are single use and expire after ten minutes, and five wrong attempts retires the code so you will need a fresh one.
The app says to continue in my browser, but no browser opened.
The waiting screen shows an eight-character code and an address to type it at. Go to that address on any device you like, including your phone, enter the code and carry on from there. The app is watching the same request, so it signs itself in as soon as you finish. The code omits characters that are easy to confuse, so there are no zeros or ones in it, and typing the dash is optional.
I opened the sign-in link on my phone, but Clean Rabbit is on my laptop. Does that work?
Yes. The link is tied to the sign-in request, not to the device that opened it, so opening it on your phone still releases the app waiting on your laptop. Your phone may ask you to confirm the email address first, because the browser that opened the link is not the one that asked for it. If you would rather not do it that way, type the six-digit code from the same email into the app instead.
The website says I am signed in, but the app has not noticed. What now?
Give it a few seconds, because the app polls for confirmation rather than being pushed to. If it is still waiting, check that the browser and the app are using the same email address and that the app has network access. Quitting and reopening Clean Rabbit makes it check again immediately. If it still will not connect, start sign-in again from the app.
I cleaned several gigabytes but my free space barely moved. Why?
Most often because of the default option: the files went to the Trash or Recycle Bin, which still occupies disk space until you empty it. On macOS, local Time Machine snapshots can also hold on to freed space for a while after a delete, though that usually resolves itself within a day.
Still stuck?
Email hello@whiterabbitfoundry.com and tell us your operating system, its version, and what you were doing when it went wrong. If the app opened at all, Settings has a Diagnostics section with a Copy button, and pasting that in helps more than anything else. File names, folder paths and email addresses are stripped out before anything is written to it, so it is safe to send. A real person reads it.
For data protection requests, see your rights under UK GDPR. To change your email preferences, go to your account.