Does MemCleaner send data anywhere?

There are no accounts and no telemetry. Settings, process exclusions and cleanup history are stored locally in the current user's AppData folder.

Give the RAM back.

Q: Is MemCleaner free?

Yes. MemCleaner is released under the MIT license and the full source is on GitHub. There is no paid edition, no trial and no upsell inside the app.

Q: Does MemCleaner need administrator rights?

For the standby list, modified pages and the system file cache, yes. Windows only exposes those interfaces to an elevated process, so expect a UAC prompt. If you decline it, working sets can still be trimmed.

MemCleaner is a small Windows program that gives memory back to the system. It watches your RAM, clears the areas you choose, and can run on a timer or when usage crosses a line you set. Four installers cover Windows XP through 11, including the versions Microsoft stopped caring about.

Download 1.0.0 Read the source

MIT licensed 6 Windows families No account, no telemetry

MemCleaner v1.0.0

In use 63.4%

Available 5.8GB

Committed 9.2GB

Physical memoryLive

Runs on

Windows XP SP3 Windows Vista SP2 Windows 7 SP1 Windows 8.1 Windows 10 1809+ Windows 11 x86 and x64 Ctrl + Alt + M Windows XP SP3 Windows Vista SP2 Windows 7 SP1 Windows 8.1 Windows 10 1809+ Windows 11 x86 and x64 Ctrl + Alt + M

01 / Features

Small tool. Plenty of switches.

Nothing is buried three menus deep. What you see after install is the whole program, and the settings pane is one hotkey away.

The short version

A memory monitor that also cleans, or a cleaner that also monitors. Both descriptions fit. The window stays dark because a memory graph tends to live on a second screen at night, and the interface stays compact because it is a utility, not a dashboard.

Read the source on GitHub

Memory monitoring

Monitoring

Four readings, refreshed on a timer: used RAM, available RAM, the file cache and commit charge. Enough to tell whether the machine is actually short on memory or just sitting on a lot of cache.

Pick your targets

Cleanup

Clear process working sets, the standby list, modified pages or the system file cache. Turn areas off when you don't need them. Unavailable ones stay greyed out instead of pretending to work.

Automate it

Automation

Run a cleanup every N minutes, whenever usage passes a threshold, or both. The two conditions are independent, so a threshold on its own works fine.

Keep a record

History

Each run is logged with a timestamp, the trigger and roughly how much memory came back. Handy when you are trying to work out what eats RAM overnight.

Spare a process

Exclusions

Exclusions let a game, a virtual machine or a build server keep its working set while everything else gets swept.

Stay out of the way

Integration

Start with Windows, minimize to the tray and call the cleaner from anywhere with Ctrl+Alt+M. The hotkey is global, so it works while another window has focus.

Speak your language

Interface

English, Russian or whatever Windows is set to. The dark theme is the only theme, and that is deliberate.

02 / Internals

Four places Windows keeps your RAM.

Memory that looks free isn't always free, and memory that looks used isn't always needed. These are the pools MemCleaner can touch, with a note on what each one does.

Process working sets

Every running process holds pages it has touched recently. EmptyWorkingSet asks each one to let go of the pages it isn't using. Windows reloads them from disk when they are needed again, which is why the first click on an old window may feel slower.

EmptyWorkingSet

Standby list

Closed programs leave their pages in a cached state, ready to be reused. That cache is useful until it grows large enough to push the system toward the pagefile. Clearing standby frees it immediately.

NtSetSystemInformation

Modified pages

Dirty pages waiting to be written to disk. Flushing them releases the memory and can shorten the next write burst, at the cost of a little disk activity right now.

NtSetSystemInformation

System file cache

Windows caches file reads in RAM. On a workstation with a lot of disk work, that cache can grow out of proportion. Trimming it is the most situational option of the four.

SetSystemFileCacheSize

Windows caches on purpose. A cleaner is not a fix for a machine that is genuinely out of memory. If you sit at 95 percent all day, more RAM or fewer background apps will do more than any button. MemCleaner is for the in-between cases, and for seeing what is going on. The standby list, modified pages and file cache are only reachable from an elevated process, so Windows will ask for administrator rights.

Which areas each Windows version allows

Memory cleanup areas supported by each Windows version
Memory area	XP SP3	Vista SP2	7 & 8.1	10 & 11
Process working setsEmptyWorkingSet	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Standby list and modified pagesNtSetSystemInformation	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
System file cacheSetSystemFileCacheSize	64-bit only	Yes	Yes	Yes
Elevated autostartTask Scheduler	Run key	Yes	Yes	Yes

The XP build is 32-bit only, so the file cache option is hidden there. On XP, autostart uses the current user's Run key instead of a scheduled task. Legacy builds mark unsupported areas as unavailable and never let you enable them.

03 / Builds

Four installers, one source tree.

.NET 10 will never run on Windows XP. So the modern app is WPF, and the old systems get WinForms built on .NET Framework 3.5: the same features where the OS allows them, a plainer window and less animation.

x64 · .NET 10

Windows 10 & 11

WPF · 1809 or newer

The main build. Full interface, live monitoring, every cleanup area the OS exposes and the elevated scheduled task for autostart.

MemCleaner-Setup-1.0.0.0.exe Download

x86 · .NET 3.5

Windows 7 & 8.1

WinForms · SP1

For 7 SP1 and 8.1. .NET Framework 3.5 ships with both systems, so the installer has nothing extra to pull in.

MemCleaner-Legacy-7-8.1-Setup-1.0.0.0.exe Download

x86 · .NET 3.5

Windows Vista

WinForms · SP2

The same legacy source, packaged for Vista SP2. Install .NET Framework 3.5 first; it is not part of a default Vista image.

MemCleaner-Legacy-Vista-Setup-1.0.0.0.exe Download

32-bit · .NET 3.5

Windows XP

WinForms · SP3

XP SP3, 32-bit. Working sets only, plus monitoring and a Run-key autostart. The cleanest example of doing what the OS can actually do.

MemCleaner-Legacy-XP-Setup-1.0.0.0.exe Download

04 / Install

Install, click, forget.

The installer checks the Windows build before it writes anything, so an incompatible system fails early instead of leaving half a program behind.

Grab the right installer

Releases has one file per Windows family. Sizes are small, there is no web installer and nothing downloads in the background.

Choose the areas

Start with working sets and the standby list. The file cache is worth clearing only if you know why you want it cleared.

Set a threshold

Somewhere around 80 to 85 percent is a sane starting point. Then minimize it to the tray and forget the program exists.

Not in the box

No registry cleaning, no temp-file shredding, no driver, no kernel patch, no bundled antivirus and no "PC speedup" module. It calls documented Windows APIs plus NtSetSystemInformation, which is undocumented but has been stable for two decades.

No registry scanner
No driver install
No account required
No telemetry

Build it yourself

The modern app publishes with the .NET SDK. Legacy builds use .NET Framework 3.5 reference assemblies, and the installers are Inno Setup scripts.

# Windows 10 / 11
dotnet publish windows-10-11/source/src/MemCleaner/MemCleaner.csproj -c Release -o publish

# Windows XP / Vista / 7 / 8.1
dotnet build windows-xp/source/MemCleanerLegacy/MemCleanerLegacy.csproj -c Release

05 / Download

Take it for a spin.

Installers live on GitHub Releases. The binaries are small, they come with no toolbar, and the source is right there if you would rather compile it yourself. Version 1.0.0 is the first public release.

Download for Windows 10 / 11 All releases

06 / Questions

Reasonable questions.

Short answers to the things people ask before installing a memory tool. If yours is missing, the issue tracker is open.

Ask on GitHub

Is MemCleaner free?

Yes. It is released under the MIT license and the full source is on GitHub. There is no paid edition, no trial timer and no upsell inside the app.

Does it need administrator rights?

For the standby list, modified pages and the file cache, yes. Windows only exposes those interfaces to an elevated process, so expect a UAC prompt. If you decline it, working sets can still be trimmed.

Will it actually make my PC faster?

Sometimes. If the machine is close to its limit and the standby list is large, freeing it can stop paging and make switching between programs feel quicker. With plenty of free RAM the difference will be small, and mostly visible in the numbers rather than in how the desktop feels. Windows manages memory well; be suspicious of any cleaner that promises otherwise.

Which Windows versions are supported?

Windows XP SP3, Vista SP2, 7 SP1, 8.1, Windows 10 1809 or newer, and Windows 11. The modern build is x64 only. XP, Vista and 7/8.1 use separate WinForms installers on .NET Framework 3.5.

Does it send any data anywhere?

There are no accounts and no telemetry. Settings, process exclusions and cleanup history stay in the current user's AppData folder.

How is this different from RAMMap?

RAMMap is Microsoft's diagnostic tool: it shows what occupies physical memory and lets you clear it by hand. MemCleaner is the small always-on version of that idea, with monitoring, a threshold, a tray icon, a global hotkey and a log of previous runs.