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Cannot run Custom Clean in CCleaner Free. Clicking Run Cleaner brings up a pop-up invitation to upgrade to CCleaner professional. Closing that brings up a pop-up for a 30 day free trial of CCleaner professional. Clicking “no, thanks” brings you back to where you started.
Anyone else having this problem?
I see the popup too, but the “Run Cleaner” button is on the CCleaner screen underneath. If that screen is not set on “Full screen” (were you can;t move it), move it out from under the popup and click the “Clean” button.
I’m running v6.22.10977
If the screen is smaller (or the resolution is less), the popup in the lower right covers the main “Clean” window and, in doing so, blocks the “Run Cleaner” button. If the main “Clean” window is not full screen, I can drag it with the cursor out from under the popup so I can “Run Cleaner.” Win11 22H2 May updates.
Have not updated to 6.24 yet.
I use Ccleaner free, but block its internet access (phoning home) via the firewall. It stops all the popups and nags. However, for AV I use Bitdefender which makes this very easy. Not so for every AV app.
I also use Ccleaner and here’s how I blocked all the ads/nags.
With Ccleaner open, select Options in the left panel and Privacy on the right.
Uncheck both of the boxes under the Offers section.
To block Ccleaner from phoning home I created an outbound rule in Windows Firewall as follows:
• Right-click the Ccleaner shortcut and copy (Ctrl+C) the contents of the Target box.
• Open Advanced Firewall settings (WinKey+R, enter wf.msc and press enter).
• Select Outbound Rules in the left panel.
• Select New Rule… in the Action panel.
• Select Program in the left panel and paste (Ctrl+V) the contents of the shortcut into the This program path: box.
• Click the Next> button and select the Block the connection option.
• Click the Next> button and check all 3 boxes.
• Click the Next> button and enter a name for the rule (i.e. Block Ccleaner Ads).
• Click the Finish button.
Note: the Keep Ccleaner updated automatically and Send notifications when there’s a new version of Ccleaner options under Options > Updates won’t work once the outbound block is in place so you should go ahead and uncheck those as well!
BTW, the above procedure can be used to block “outbound” connections for any program to get rid of ads/nags it produces but be aware; some programs will not work properly if they can’t connect to the internet (especially if they have a auto-update function enabled.)
Hi George1:
According to Leon’s 27-May-2024 CCleaner does not respect my choice in the CCleaner forum some CCleaner Free users updating to v6.24 (rel. 23-May-2024) received an “experimental” version of CCleaner v6.24 that will not run Custom Clean and will show a pop-up asking them to upgrade to CCleaner Professional when they try to use this feature. Not every CCleaner Free v6.24 user has this problem because only one variant of the “experimental” build that completely blocks Custom Clean is being pushed out randomly to a small number of Cleaner Free users for evaluation.
I captured the following image of a notification banner that was briefly posted at the top of the CCleaner forum on 29-May-2024 about upcoming changes to CCleaner Free but I’m guessing the early feedback was so negative that Avast / Piriform decided to remove (postpone?) the official announcement.
One possible workaround is to uninstall the “experimental” CCleaner Free v6.24 and then reinstall with the “Slim” installer (ccsetup624_slim.exe) offered at https://www.ccleaner.com/ccleaner/builds. If you’re lucky you might reinstall a v6.24 product that has a working Custom Clean feature.
FYI, I’m still on CCleaner Free Portable v6.23 and won’t be updating to a newer version until I have a clearer idea exactly what Avast / Piriform is planning for CCleaner Free. I’m currently testing BleachBit Portable as a replacement.
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Dell Inspiron 15 5584 * 64-bit Win 10 Pro v22H2 build 19045.4412 * Firefox v126.0.1 * Microsoft Defender v4.18.24040.4 -1.1.24050.5 * Malwarebytes Premium v5.1.4.112-1.0.1244 * Macrium Reflect Free v8.0.7783 * CCleaner Free Portable v6.23.11010 * BleachBit Portable v4.6.0
I’m running CCleaner Free v6.24.11060 portable (the last option on the “official” CCleaner – Download Builds page) and have not encountered this problem. Suggest you uninstall your current version and try it instead.
Note: recommend you check the Save all settings to INI file in Options > Advanced before doing that, restart Ccleaner at least once, and then save the new ccleaner.ini file it creates.
After extracting the portable version to the same location the old “installed“version used (so your shortcuts still work), replace the extracted ccleaner.ini file with the saved version so it’ll “remember” your old settings when you start it.
I’ve been using the portable (zip) version for a number of years and when I download a newer version the only files I ever extract from it into my existing Ccleaner folder are Ccleaner.exe & Ccleaner64.exe. I leave everything else “as is” and it’s always worked just fine.
BTW, whenever you update to a new version, it’s a good idea to go thru all the settings to see if anything new has been added (especially Custom Clean > Windows and Applications) that you might want to use.
the “experimental” build has three variants that you can tell apart by the colour of the Upgrade button (grey) or Get Pro button (green or orange) on the main dashboard
The Ccleaner outbound Firewall block I mentioned in my above post prevents the Update option on my version from working; I get the following message if I click it:
So I have no idea what color the update button for my version is, although since I don’t get the Upgrade to Pro prompt you are, I “assume” it’s not one that includes the bug.
I updated to 6.24 recently and have had no problems “so far”. I do get the ads but they show up at the side of the main screen like they always have. W10 Pro 22H2
Don't take yourself so seriously, no one else does 
All W10 Pro at 22H2,(2 Desktops, 1 Laptop).
I uninstalled v6.24 and installed v6.23 so I would be able to run a Custom Clean. When I executed v6.23 CCleaner said there was a newer version, v6.24, and did I want to update to the new version. I clicked to go ahead and update. CCleaner updated to v6.24 and it must be a non-“experimental” build because the problem is gone.
But unless Piriform restores the ability to use Custom Clean free at least for home users then expect I will eventually find an alternative.
@Douglas –
Piriform got bought/acquired by/merged with Avast as you noted above, and Avast then underwent the same thing with regards to being bought/acquired by/merged with Norton, who was then bought out by/acquired by/merged with Gen Digital, who now owns the rights to several software companies/names. Those names include most anything with the Norton name on it (including LifeLock), Avast, AVG, Avira, and CCleaner. See the following link for details of just who is part of their family: https://www.gendigital.com/us/en/family-of-brands/.
So, what you experienced in the past with your products from Norton may very well reappear with future editions of CCleaner, and it sounds like this upgrade offer mix-up might be a hint of what’s to come.
As pointed out above, don’t use the installer version, even the Slim one, use the portable version instead available from the following link.
https://www.ccleaner.com/ccleaner/builds
It “does not” use an installer and you only need to extract one of the following 2 files for it to work.
Ccleaner.exe (works on 32 & 64 bit OS’s)
Ccleaner64.exe (only works on 64 bit OS’s)
Note: the first time you run the exe, all the options will be set to their default values (but it will “remember” any changes you make) and it’ll create a LOG and Setup folder in whatever location you extracted it to (so it’d be a good idea to place it in its own folder.)
As I pointed out above, I’ve been using the portable version for a long time and version 6.24.11060, with my outgoing Ccleaner.exe internet connection Firewall block in place, does not include the Upgrade popup that’s been discussed (i.e. Custom Clean and all the other options work just fine.)
BTW, to avoid possibly having the popup prompt continue to appear, I’d suggest completely removing the installed version of Ccleaner and then ensuring the following registry locations that contained its configuration info were deleted.
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Piriform\CCleaner HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Piriform\CCleaner
If they weren’t, manually delete them before using the portable version for the first time.
…the Run Cleaner button will not activate. I am using the latest 6.25 version on Windows 11.
Hi Colin:
This problem is not unique to Win 7 and has nothing to do with the user’s operating system. The decision to prevent Custom Clean from running in CCleaner Free (at least for the unfortunate group of users who have been randomly chosen to test an “experimental” build of CCleaner Free v6.24 or v6.25 with a non-functional Custom Clean feature) is an apparent change in policy by Avast / Piriform. See forum Moderator’s hazelnut’s 19-Jun-2024 Build 6.25 Free cannot clean using Custom Clean unless you pay in the CCleaner forum for more information.
I say “apparent” because the official 29-May-2024 announcement was taken down from the CCleaner forum after a few hours (see my image of that announcement in my post # 2676977 above), and as far as I know Avast / Piriform employees are still refusing to provide the CCleaner forum mods with any additional information about the company’s future plans for CCleaner Free.
Just FYI, APMichael posted an edit of two registry values in Sectorgz’s CCleaner 6.24.11060 will not do a Custom Clean on 05-Jun-2024 that might get Custom Clean working again, but I assume those two registry values could be automatically reset the next time you update CCleaner Free and would need to be edited again. At some point Avast / Piriform will probably realize that CCleaner Free users have found a registry edit to re-enable Custom Clean and will remove that back door.
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Dell Inspiron 15 5584 * 64-bit Win 10 Pro v22H2 build 19045.4529 * Firefox v127.0.1 * Microsoft Defender v4.18.24050.7-1.1.24050.5 * Malwarebytes Premium v5.1.5.116-1.0.1252 * Macrium Reflect Free v8.0.7783 * CCleaner Free Portable v6.25.11093
Portable free ccPortable 6.25 will run ‘custom clean’.
That’s good that it still runs Custom Clean for you, but that’s NOT the case for others with the SAME installation of version 6.25 of CCleaner Portable.
Carefully read each post of the thread at the first link in @lmacri ‘s post number 2682429 above, and you’ll see folks for whom version 6.25 Portable doesn’t allow them to do a Custom Clean, but instead puts up a “wall” asking them to pay if they want to run that feature.
In all fairness, there are a few in that thread who claim that after a round of several attempts, the “wall” gave way to allowing them to run the Custom Clean option. That makes it sound to me like the publisher(s) of CCleaner and the Portable version of CCleaner are running the “blockade” on a rotating basis.
So, Alex, at some point in time (I don’t know exactly when), you may very well be confronted with the “wall” yourself after all.
IMHO, for now, after reading the whole thread I mentioned above, I believe the best overall solution to avoiding the “paywall” in CCleaner for as long as possible is to follow @n0ads ‘ advice above in post numbers 2676923, 2677037, and 2678811.
Just FYI, I updated my Ccleaner to the portable 6.25.11093 version (downloaded from the link in my post #2678811) and, as pointed out in the same post, only extracted the CCleaner.exe & CCleaner64.exe files into my existing Ccleaner folder.
So far everything’s been running just fine without Custom Clean being blocked.
Once again, the issue with Custom Clean being blocked “appears” to be related to installing Ccleaner instead of using a portable versions that hs no installer!
It also “seems” to be a requirement that any existing version that was installed, be removed (and the associated registry entries deleted) before attempting to use a portable version.
I use CCPortable from PortableApps. I can confirm that is does not create those Registry entries in Win11. I have not checked Win10 (yet).
However, I can also confirm that the block was there in v6.24 on my Win11. I have not blocked the two .exe files in the Firewall. I went back to v6.22 to avoid the block.
I also have not yet checked out the v6.25
I use CCPortable from PortableApps. I can confirm that is does not create those Registry entries in Win11….However, I can also confirm that the block was there in v6.24 on my Win11. I have not blocked the two .exe files in the Firewall.
Perhaps the best solution is what I plan to do if Avast / Piriform ever prevents me from running Custom Clean in CCleaner Free Portable with my current setup – just abandon CCleaner altogether and find a replacement.
Of the half-dozen or so possible replacements I’ve tested to date BleachBit Portable and HDCleaner Portable seem like good candidates. Both allow you to preview a list of files that will be cleaned before they are deleted, but both user interfaces are a bit cluttered and would take a bit of getting used to. So far my personal preference is HDCleaner Portable since it has a setting you can enable to prevent deletion of temp files created in the past 24 hours ***, which I believe is default setting in CCleaner.
*** NOTE: This setting dos not work correctly in the current HDCleaner v2.073; a bug fix is expected when v2.074 is released.
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Dell Inspiron 15 5584 * 64-bit Win 10 Pro v22H2 build 19045.4529 * Firefox v127.0.1 * Microsoft Defender v4.18.24050.7-1.1.24050.5 * Malwarebytes Premium v5.1.5.116-1.0.1252 * Macrium Reflect Free v8.0.7783 * CCleaner Free Portable v6.25.11093 * BleachBit Portable v4.6.0 * HDCleaner Portable 64-Bit v2.073
Has anyone noticed that Custom Clean is working again after updating to the latest CCleaner Free v6.25.11131 (released 01-Jul-2024)? There are a few users posting today in steambc’s topic Custom Clean now only works with Pro License? in the CCleaner forum that Custom Clean is working again since their “standard” installation of CCleaner Free updated to v6.25.11131.
I can’t test myself because Custom Clean is still working for me in the previous CCleaner Free Portable v6.25.11093. Recall that I delete all excutables bundled inside the Portable .zip file except CCleaner64.exe and have created custom inbound and outbound blocks in my firewall for CCleaner64.exe.
See Moderator’s hazelnut’s CCleaner 6.25.11131 released (bug fix) in the CCleaner forum for more information about the latest release.
———–
Dell Inspiron 15 5584 * 64-bit Win 10 Pro v22H2 build 19045.4529 * Firefox v127.0.2 * Microsoft Defender v4.18.24050.7-1.1.24050.5 * Malwarebytes Premium v5.1.6.117-1.0.1270 * Macrium Reflect Free v8.0.7783 * CCleaner Free Portable v6.25.11093
…the lack of clarity from Piriform.
For some folks, that’s probably enough of a reason for them to go find a competitor’s product, either paid or free.
Back-and-forth like that with what’s probably a very popular feature is a great way to lose customers, no matter what the product.
At this point, from what I’ve read at all the links that have been provided in this thread (some have been eye-openers), I’m not even sure that there’s an actual company called Piriform any more. I don’t recall seeing a mention of Piriform’s name on the Gen Digital site, only the mention of the name of one of their leading products, CCleaner. 
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