Automating cleanmgr.exe silently using PowerShell

Question

I've been working on a script that is supposed to run cleanmgr.exe silently when disk C: is less than a 1gb, it's all working well, but one thing I couldn't achieve...

I want to run cleanmgr.exe silently fully! I don't wanna see anything from the disk cleanup gui not even a screen that says done.

using sageset and sagerun made it automated yes, but it still shows the process.

Here's my code (I know it has some issues regarding few things, but I'm focusing on the silent execution here, thanks!):

if ($freeSpace -le $lowSpace)
{   
   cleanmgr.exe /sagerun:10
   defrag C:
}

else
{
   echo "sorry!"
   pause
}

It would be better to fix whatever conditions are causing you to run dangerously low on disk space in the first place. — alroc, Jun 18 '14 at 12:32
It's a challenge between me and a friend, it has nothing to do with fixing stuff. :D — AliAlghamdi, Jun 22 '14 at 03:59
This is a duplicate question of http://stackoverflow.com/q/28852786/80161 and I'm moving my answer there. — Nathan Hartley, Apr 20 '16 at 14:53

score 5 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 23 '16 at 14:30

5

Actually cleanmgr /verylowdisk runs silently.

cleanmgr /verylowdisk is like a version of cleanmgr /lowdisk with no user interaction.

answered Sep 23 '16 at 14:30

ToinoBiclas

262
4
13

"Actually cleanmgr /verylowdisk runs silently." MAYBE so, but tit still hangs the prompt in PowerShell. You need to call it as a job. – Patrick Burwell Sep 15 '22 at 21:33

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 18 '14 at 18:14

1

If you navigate to C:\windows\system32\cleanmgr.exe /? in the command prompt you will see the switches for the exe. Unfortunately, it looks like there are no silent switches for this utility.

enter image description here

answered Jun 18 '14 at 18:14

runcmd

572
2
7
22

Thanks! I've been introduced to this before, I'm just asking if there's a way, apparently there's not. – AliAlghamdi Jun 22 '14 at 04:00
@AliAlghamdi No, I do not see a way of doing this. If my answer was sufficient please "mark" this as an answer. – runcmd Jun 23 '14 at 12:01
Thank you, I don't see anyway of doing it now. So thanks for this. – AliAlghamdi Jun 25 '14 at 09:29

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 12 '15 at 21:31

The best way I found to do this is make a Scheduled task with schtasks (I built an XML config that gets deployed) and run the task on creation, in the settings it can be set to run as system/admin (which you would need for a defrag) and non interactively. The only issue I have had is the Windows update cleanup component doesn't seem to run.

IMS · Answer 4 · 2023-02-13T17:34:28.767

0

#Runs Disk Cleanup with the /VERKLOWDISK argument to clean as much as possible.
Start-Process -FilePath cleanmgr.exe -ArgumentList '/VERYLOWDISK'
#Checks once per second for the popup window that is displayed upon cleanup completion.
#Must be run in an interactive session in order for this to work.    
While ((Get-Process -Name cleanmgr).MainWindowTitle -ne "Disk Space Notification") {Start-Sleep 1}
#Kills Disk Cleanup once completion popup is detected.
Stop-Process -Name cleanmgr -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

edited Feb 13 '23 at 17:34

answered Feb 06 '23 at 21:26

IMS

1
1

Hey IMS, welcome to Stack Overflow and thank you for your answer! The community would appreciate if to addition to the provided code snippet you would give more context on how it works. – mingaleg Feb 06 '23 at 22:00

score -1 · Answer 5 · answered Aug 23 '16 at 18:23

So not sure where your at with this, but this is what I'm using to clean up templates that we are building in Packer prior to deploying in VMware.

$strKeyPath   = "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VolumeCaches"
$strValueName = "StateFlags0065"
$subkeys      = Get-ChildItem -Path $strKeyPath -Name

ForEach($subkey in $subkeys){
    $null = New-ItemProperty `
        -Path $strKeyPath\$subkey `
        -Name $strValueName `
        -PropertyType DWord `
        -Value 2 `
        -ea SilentlyContinue `
        -wa SilentlyContinue
}

Start-Process cleanmgr `
        -ArgumentList "/sagerun:65" `
        -Wait `
        -NoNewWindow `
        -ErrorAction   SilentlyContinue `
        -WarningAction SilentlyContinue

ForEach($subkey in $subkeys){
    $null = Remove-ItemProperty `
        -Path $strKeyPath\$subkey `
        -Name $strValueName `
        -ea SilentlyContinue `
        -wa SilentlyContinue
}

exit 0

Automating cleanmgr.exe silently using PowerShell

5 Answers5