C-drive Cleanup Master (c-drive-cleanup-master)

A safe Windows C: drive cleanup workflow — measure / scan / delete with red lines and an 11-item pitfalls checklist.

Why this exists

Running out of C: drive space is the most common Windows pain. 99% of online "cleanup guides" only teach cleanmgr / DISM. They don't tell you what absolutely must not be deleted, nor what looks deletable but will silently break things (QQPCMgr live mirroring, the parts of WinSxS you really can't touch, Windows per-volume Recycle Bins, VSS, parent-directory mtime lies, ...).

This skill encodes "what not to touch" and "how to touch what you can" as a red-lines + 11-pitfalls checklist + 6-stage pipeline. Every stage has a red-line gate. Every pitfall has been hit in production with full evidence. All deletions go through the Windows Recycle Bin (FOF_ALLOWUNDO) and are fully reversible.

Features

• 🚦 Red lines first — Desktop / Downloads / Documents / system directories / .workbuddy are NEVER touched
• 🪤 11 pitfalls — each with a full "hit -> evidence -> fix" chain
• 🧰 6-stage pipeline — measure -> scan -> grade -> backup-align -> delete-via-recycle -> verify
• 💬 WeChat cleanup sub-module — 4 scripts: backup redundancy detection / md5 content dedup / safe recycle execution
• ↩️ Fully reversible — every delete lands in the Windows Recycle Bin, recoverable on misclick
• 🌐 Dual-publish — GitHub (English, this repo) + SkillHub (Chinese, skillId 187879)

30-second quickstart

# 1) Read SKILL.md  <- the master doc (red lines + 6 stages + 11 pitfalls)
# 2) Measure baseline
python scripts/measure_free.py

# 3) Scan safe targets (read-only)
python scripts/scan_safe_targets.py

# 4) Optional: WeChat cleanup quartet
python scripts/wechat_analyze.py             # whole-tree inventory
python scripts/wechat_backup_inspect.py     # backup redundancy detection
python scripts/wechat_dedup_plan.py         # md5 content dedup
python scripts/wechat_dedup_recycle.py      # execute via recycle (careful!)

# 5) Generic target delete (careful!)
python scripts/delete_safe.py

⚠️ Before any write operation, read SKILL.md §0 Red Lines. All scripts are pure Python stdlib — no pip install required.

Workflow

[measure] -> [scan] -> [grade] -> [align] -> [delete-via-recycle] -> [verify]
 measure    scan_safe  scan_safe   backup_    delete_safe            scan_safe
  _free     _targets   _targets    inspect    wechat_dedup           _targets
                                                   _recycle

11 pitfalls (top picks)

#	Pitfall	One-liner
11	QQPCMgr "software move" is a live mirror	Deleting on C: mirror-deletes on E:; parent-dir mtime is not trustworthy
6	Windows has one Recycle Bin per volume	Clearing C: != clearing E:
8	Don't blindly clean WinSxS	StartComponentCleanup removes replaced components only; core OS files are off-limits
5	Parent-dir mtime doesn't reflect subtree activity	Check child-dir second-level mtime for liveness
...	The other 7 are in SKILL.md §4

Docs & License

• 📖 Master doc: SKILL.md — full spec (6 stages / 11 pitfalls / red lines / script usage)
• 📜 License: LICENSE (MIT)
• 🇨🇳 SkillHub Chinese edition: skillId 187879 ("C Drive Cleanup Master") — also published as the Chinese sibling under user user_839f3063
• ✍️ Author: @jamesting-eng

Suitable / Not suitable

✅ Suitable for: Windows 10/11 users, red C: drive users, people who want a systematic cleanup
❌ Not suitable for: anyone wanting a "one-click speed-up" silver bullet (this project sells discipline, not silver bullets)
⚠️ No warranty: the author is not liable for losses from misuse — all deletions go via the Recycle Bin, but clear it only after a personal review

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💡 The two most important things: ① Run measure_free to capture a baseline before any write op; ② Before assuming "I can delete this", come back and read SKILL.md §0 Red Lines.