broom

A fast, no-nonsense Windows system cleanup tool. Run it, let it sweep, move on.

What it does

Broom clears out the junk that Windows accumulates over time:

• Temp files — C:\Windows\Temp and user temp directories
• Prefetch cache
• Windows logs and error reports (WER)
• Thumbnail cache — kills Explorer briefly to unlock files, then restarts it
• Delivery Optimization cache
• Recycle Bin
• DNS cache — runs ipconfig /flushdns
• Windows Update cache — stops wuauserv/bits, clears downloads, restarts both
• Windows.old — takes ownership and removes the entire folder if present
• Microsoft Store cache
• DISM component cleanup

All tasks run concurrently for speed. Everything gets logged to cleanup_log.txt.

Getting started

Option 1: Download from Releases

Grab the latest .exe from the Releases page. Two builds are available:

File	Description
broom.exe	GUI mode — runs silently without a console window
broom-console.exe	Console mode — shows progress output in terminal

Double-click it. Broom will ask for admin privileges (UAC prompt), and on first run it installs itself to %LOCALAPPDATA%\broom and adds that to your PATH. After that, just open any terminal and type:

broom

Option 2: Build from source

Requires Go 1.24+.

git clone https://github.com/your-username/broom.git
cd broom

# GUI build (no console window)
make build

# Console build (shows output)
make build-console

The binary lands in bin/broom.exe.

Updating

Broom can update itself to the latest version published in GitHub releases. Simply run:

broom update

It will fetch the latest executable, replace the current one, and keep the older version backed up as broom.old.exe.

How it works

1. Broom checks if it's running as Administrator. If not, it re-launches itself elevated via UAC.
2. On first run, it copies itself to %LOCALAPPDATA%\broom and adds that folder to your user PATH (so you can type broom from anywhere going forward).
3. Cleanup tasks kick off in parallel — temp files, caches, logs, etc.
4. Results are printed to the console (in console mode) and always appended to cleanup_log.txt.

Project structure

cmd/broom/          Entry point
internal/
  cleanup/          All the cleanup routines
  elevate/          UAC elevation via ShellExecuteW
  install/          Self-install to PATH on first run
  logger/           File + console logging
  update/           Self-updating from GitHub releases

Requirements

• Windows 10/11
• Administrator privileges (Broom will request them automatically)

License

MIT