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Clean Disk Space and Traces with bleachbit CLI

Preview available cleaners, then wipe caches, logs and activity traces from the terminal — as user or system-wide with sudo.

LinuxcleanupbleachbitclisecurityMedium risk
Run bleachbit --list to see cleaners, then bleachbit --clean system.tmp firefox.cache to free that space (add sudo for system-wide files).

01Command

Command
$ bleachbit --list | head && bleachbit --clean system.tmp firefox.cache

02What it does

BleachBit knows how dozens of applications store their junk — browser caches, crash logs, thumbnails, recently-used lists — and --clean removes exactly the categories you name. Always run --list first and preview with --preview before cleaning, because some cleaners remove things you may want, like saved passwords or cookies. Unlike generic disk-cleaner scripts, it also offers file shredding and free-space wiping for privacy purposes, all scriptable from cron.

03Risk

RiskMedium risk
Requirementsbleachbit (sudo apt install bleachbit / sudo dnf install bleachbit); prefix with sudo to clean system-level files
!Warning: Cleaning is immediate and selective — wiping browser cookies or the 'deep scan' cleaner can log you out of sites or delete data you wanted; never guess cleaner names, list and preview first.

04Undo

✓No undo needed — this command does not change persistent state.

05Sources

  • BleachBit Command Line Interface — Official Documentation
    BleachBit · vendor-doc · 2026-09-17
    Evidence: Documents bleachbit --list to show available cleaners and --clean cleaner.option to wipe the selected items headlessly.
  • BleachBit — README
    BleachBit project (GitHub) · vendor-doc · 2026-09-17
    Evidence: Official readme: BleachBit frees disk space and guards privacy by cleaning caches, cookies, log files and shredding files.

Last verified: 2026-09-18 · Category: Security & Privacy

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