I built an Open Source Linux cleaner because I couldn't find one I wanted to use

Recently I started building something called TuxCleaner, a safety-first cleanup and disk analysis tool for Linux.

What began as a small way to avoid looking up the same package-manager commands turned into a terminal app for cleaning caches, uninstalling applications, finding large files, and removing old project artifacts across different Linux distributions.

Part of the inspiration came from Mole, whose focused terminal experience and safety-first interaction model showed me how approachable a cleanup tool could feel. TuxCleaner brings that idea to Linux with independently implemented cleanup rules and distribution-specific adapters.

This post is about why I built it, why deleting files turned out to be the least interesting part, and why I think a cleanup tool should spend more time earning your trust than asking for your password.

Linux Cleanup Is Still a Collection of Commands