Profiles

A profile is a named list of sections, resolved exactly like --only. Subtract with --exclude. Rehearse any profile with --dry-run the first time. A profile adds nothing a section does not already do: it names sections, and every guard, gate and refusal is the section's own.

Profile	Sections	When to use
dev	1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 17	Reclaim developer caches, emulators, Docker and stale node_modules
minimal	7, 8, 9, 10	A quick weekly pass over browser, app and Windows caches plus temp
cache-only	1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9	Every cache layer, nothing else - the "something is misbehaving" reset
system	12, 13, 14	The admin batch: Windows Update cache, Disk Cleanup engine, component store
deep	0, 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 21	The monthly pass: everything except the deep-gated and interactive sections
audit	0, 21, 22, 24, 25	Read-only diagnostics: health, disk usage, global packages, idle programs, startup items

windowsweep --profile dev --dry-run
windowsweep --profile dev --yes
windowsweep --profile system --yes --elevate
windowsweep --profile deep --exclude 14 --yes

Notes:

• dev includes section 17, which is interactive-only: in a batch run it is refused and reported; run the profile from a console to select artefacts, or use --dry-run to list them.
• dev includes section 4 (AVDs), which needs --yes in batch mode and honours the per-AVD idle gate.
• system needs an elevated console; without --elevate every section in it is skipped with the command to run.
• No profile includes 11, 15, 16 or 20. Those are deep sections and need --i-understand-deep explicitly.

Last Updated: 2026-09-05