The website is just the remote control. The real work happens on your own PC via a tiny local server bound to 127.0.0.1 — nothing is sent to the internet.

Quick start (Windows)

pip install zencleaner

Open a new terminal and type:

zencleaner

Your browser opens automatically at http://127.0.0.1:8765 with the ZenCleaner web UI.

Troubleshooting

'zencleaner' is not recognized as an internal or external command

The install worked, but Windows can't find the command because pip's Scripts folder is not on your PATH (pip even prints a yellow WARNING: The script zencleaner.exe is installed in ... which is not on PATH during install). Any of these fixes work — try them in order:

py -m zencleaner

or run the shim directly:

python -m zencleaner

Or add the Scripts folder to PATH: pip's warning shows the exact folder, e.g. C:\Users\<you>\AppData\Local\Python\pythoncore-3.14-64\Scripts. Add it via Settings → search "environment variables" → Edit the system environment variables → Environment Variables → Path → Edit → New, paste that folder, OK, then open a new terminal and zencleaner will work.

'pip' is not recognized as an internal or external command

Python itself isn't installed or wasn't added to PATH. Install Python from python.org/downloads and make sure the "Add python.exe to PATH" checkbox is ticked in the installer's first screen, then reopen the terminal and run py -m pip install zencleaner.

What it can clean

Task	What it does
Temp Files	`%TEMP%`, `C:\Windows\Temp`
Prefetch	`C:\Windows\Prefetch` (admin only)
Recycle Bin	Empty recycle bin
Registry MRU	RunMRU, RecentDocs, ComDlg32 (safe keys only)
DNS Cache	`ipconfig /flushdns`
Clean All	All of the above at once

Command-line options

zencleaner --help

  --port PORT        Port to run on (default 8765)
  --no-browser       Don't auto-open the browser
  --host HOST        Bind address (default 127.0.0.1 — localhost only)
  --no-elevate       Skip the Windows UAC admin prompt
  --no-auto-kill     Don't kill an old ZenCleaner already on this port

Admin rights

Some tasks (Prefetch, Registry, Forensic) need Windows Admin. On startup ZenCleaner shows a UAC prompt — accept it for full power, or cancel/click --no-elevate and the UI still works with admin-only tasks disabled.

Security

Server binds to 127.0.0.1 only — nobody on your network or the internet can reach it.
No telemetry, no data collection, no outbound calls.
Every clean action is a real Python function running locally on your machine.