Show HN: Sifty – Windows cleanup CLI/TUI with local-only AI

Sifty, a new free and open-source Windows cleanup tool, has been released that offers a scriptable CLI and full-screen TUI for junk cleaning, disk analysis, duplicate finding, app management, and developer artifact pruning. The tool features a local-only AI assistant powered by Ollama that analyzes file metadata without sending data off-device, and includes safety measures such as dry-run defaults, Recycle Bin-only deletions, protected system paths, and a full audit log.

Clean junk, analyze disks, find duplicates, manage apps and startup programs, apply updates, prune dev artifacts and git worktrees, and organize files — from a scriptable CLI or a full-screen terminal UI. The optional AI assistant runs locally via Ollama https://ollama.com : nothing leaves your machine, and it only ever sees file metadata names, sizes, paths , never file contents. Sifty deletes files and changes system state, so it is built to be hard to misuse: Dry-run by default — every destructive command previews what it would do. Real changes need an explicit --apply . Recycle Bin, never permanent delete — all removals go through one trash function backed by Send2Trash. sifty undo restores the last clean. Protected paths — C:\Windows , Program Files , ProgramData , the drive root and your profile root are refused even with --apply --yes . Audit log — every applied deletion is recorded in %APPDATA%\sifty\audit.log . The AI never deletes anything — it is advisory; high-risk tool calls always require your approval. | Feature | Sifty | CCleaner | Revo Uninstaller | WinDirStat | |---|---|---|---|---| | Junk / cache cleaning | ✅ 11+ categories | ✅ | ➖ | ❌ | | Disk usage analysis | ✅ top-N + volumes | ➖ | ❌ | ✅ treemap | | Duplicate finder | ✅ SHA-256, NTFS-aware | ✅ paid | ❌ | ❌ | | App uninstall + leftover scan | ✅ winget + leftovers | ✅ | ✅ + leftovers | ❌ | | App updates | ✅ via winget | ✅ paid | ❌ | ❌ | | Startup manager | ✅ reversible | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | | Dev artifact purge node modules, … | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | | Git worktree / WSL2 VHD cleanup | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | | Local AI assistant | ✅ Ollama | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | | Scriptable JSON output | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | | Recycle Bin + undo for everything | ✅ | ➖ | ➖ | n/a | | Price | Free, MIT | Freemium | Freemium | Free | Sifty is built developer-first : everything is scriptable, the engine is a reusable Python library, and it cleans the things developer machines actually accumulate build artifacts, orphaned worktrees, bloated WSL2 disks . pipx install sifty recommended isolated ; or: pip install sifty scoop bucket add sifty https://github.com/Vortrix5/scoop-bucket; scoop install sifty winget install Vortrix5.Sifty once the winget-pkgs PR is merged sifty doctor check admin rights, winget, Ollama Prefer no Python install? Download the standalone sifty.exe from the latest release https://github.com/Vortrix5/sifty/releases/latest . For development: python -m venv .venv .\.venv\Scripts\python.exe -m pip install -e ". dev " .\.venv\Scripts\python.exe -m pytest -q sifty checkup one read-only scan of everything: junk, updates, orphans, stale files, disk space, startup sifty tui the full-screen interactive app Junk sifty junk scan show reclaimable space per category sifty junk clean preview removal dry-run sifty junk clean --apply send junk to the Recycle Bin asks first Disk sifty disk volumes used/free/total per volume sifty disk analyze C:\Users biggest folders/files under a path sifty disk duplicates D:\ find duplicate files and wasted space Apps & updates sifty apps list --by-size installed apps, largest first sifty apps orphans broken uninstall entries in the registry sifty apps uninstall "App" uninstall via winget preview, then --apply sifty apps leftovers "App" what the uninstaller left behind then --apply sifty update check available updates winget sifty update apply upgrade everything asks first Developer cleanup sifty purge clean node modules, dist, pycache , target, … sifty cleanup duplicates D:\Photos de-duplicate keeps one copy each sifty cleanup large C:\Users\you biggest files under a path sifty cleanup stale --days 180 old items in Downloads Startup & services sifty startup list startup programs enabled/disabled sifty startup disable "Spotify" reversible sifty startup enable … sifty services list curated optional services + state sifty --admin services disable DiagTrack toggle one needs admin History & undo sifty history what was cleaned + total space reclaimed sifty undo restore the most recent clean from the Recycle Bin Organize files sifty organize preview C:\Users\you\Downloads --by type sifty organize apply C:\Users\you\Downloads --by date sifty organize undo put the last organize's files back Configuration sifty config all settings + which ones you've overridden sifty config set ai.model "llama3.2:3b" sifty config edit open config.toml in your editor AI requires Ollama running sifty ai status sifty ai ask "what can I safely delete on my C drive?" --path C:\ Scripting — JSON output on read-only commands auto-enabled when piped sifty --json checkup sifty --json disk volumes sifty --json apps list --by-size Some operations Windows temp, update cache, certain uninstalls need an Administrator terminal — sifty doctor tells you if you're elevated, and sifty --admin <cmd relaunches elevated via UAC. sifty tui opens a full-screen app with a seven-section sidebar — Home, Clean, Disk, Apps, Monitor, Reports, AI: Home — volume gauges and a Run checkup button that scans everything at once; findings come with buttons that fix them right there clean junk, clean stale downloads, apply updates — each behind a confirm . Clean — Junk / Purge / Optimize / Smart cleanup under one roof tabs . Apps — Installed / Updates / Startup / Services, with fuzzy filter, sorting, bulk uninstall, and an automatic leftover scan after uninstalling. AI — an agentic chat: tool runs it proposes show Run/Skip buttons inline in the conversation , and scan results carry follow-up action buttons. Press Ctrl+P for the command palette jump to any screen , F2 to elevate, Space to mark rows for bulk actions. The Reports screen shows space reclaimed over time with an Undo last clean button. - Install Ollama https://ollama.com and start it. - Pull the configured model: ollama pull qwen2.5:3b . sifty ai status should report "running". Configure everything with the sifty config command — no need to hand-edit files: sifty config show all settings + your overrides sifty config set ai.model "llama3.2:3b" use a different local model sifty config set ai.host "http://localhost:11434" sifty config set safety.extra protected paths ' "D:\\Important" ' sifty config set junk.include downloads installers true sifty config edit or open config.toml in your editor Settings live in %APPDATA%\sifty\config.toml ; sifty config set only writes the keys you change, so defaults keep flowing through on upgrades. Layered — thin frontends over a reusable engine, OS specifics quarantined: src/sifty/ ├── cli/ Typer entry point + one thin command module per group ├── tui/ Textual full-screen app views call core, not cli ├── core/ the engine: junk, disk, apps, updates, cleanup, │ │ startup, services, organize, checkup, history, … │ └── safety.py ★ protected paths, dry-run guard, trash , audit log ├── windows/ OS primitives: winget, registry, UAC, Recycle Bin, DISM ├── ai/ Ollama client, advisor prompts, agentic tool loop └── infra/ TOML config + rotating diagnostics log Frontends depend on core ; core depends on windows / infra ; nothing imports upward. A GUI could call the same engine functions junk.scan , disk.find duplicates , checkup.run checkup without a rewrite. See docs/ARCHITECTURE.md /Vortrix5/sifty/blob/main/docs/ARCHITECTURE.md for the design rationale. .\.venv\Scripts\python.exe -m pytest -q 160+ tests, ~20 s The safety guardrails are the most heavily tested code in the repo; the Windows environment is mocked so the suite also runs on CI. See CONTRIBUTING.md /Vortrix5/sifty/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md to get involved. MIT /Vortrix5/sifty/blob/main/LICENSE © Amine Zouaoui