Uninstall Cleanup

Uninstall Cleanup watches Windows uninstall registry keys and offers to delete folders left behind after an app is removed.

What is Uninstall Cleanup?

Uninstall Cleanup watches the three Windows Uninstall registry hives (HKLM, HKLM Wow6432Node, and HKCU). When an installer disappears from those hives, Stealth treats that as the canonical signal that an MSI, EXE, or MSIX uninstaller just finished, and immediately scans for leftover files the uninstaller forgot to remove.

How it works

Stealth keeps a snapshot of every entry in the Uninstall hives and compares it once per minute. When an entry vanishes, the service:

  • Reads the cached display name, publisher, and recorded install location
  • Looks for matching folders under Program Files, Program Files (x86), ProgramData, %LOCALAPPDATA%, %APPDATA%, %LOCALAPPDATA%\\Programs, and the per-user / all-users Start Menu
  • Sums the size of every leftover folder so the prompt shows you how much space cleanup will recover
  • Skips Windows, Defender, the Recycle Bin, System Volume Information, WindowsApps, and Stealth's own data so a misfire can never delete protected paths

What happens when leftovers are found

A bottom-right notification shows the app name, the count of leftover items, and the total size. You choose:

  • Clean Up - permanently removes every leftover folder Stealth identified
  • Review - opens the largest leftover folder in File Explorer so you can inspect it before deciding
  • Keep - dismisses the prompt and leaves the files in place

Privacy & Performance

  • All scanning is local - no data leaves your device
  • The polling cycle runs once per minute and only walks each registry hive's top-level keys, so CPU impact is negligible
  • The leftover scan is bounded to a six-level deep walk and a 10 GB cap per leftover so it can't get stuck on huge data folders
  • Snapshots persist across restarts, so an uninstall that happens while Stealth is closed is still detected the next time you launch the app

When to disable

Leave this on for everyday use. Turn it off temporarily if you are doing development work that involves rapidly registering and unregistering MSI products, or if you intentionally want to keep configuration folders behind after an uninstall.