Shellbag Analyzer & Cleaner

Even if you delete your folders, the operating system will still keep some information about them in a series of registry keys, called shellbags. Furthermore, traditional cleanup utilities may not be able to pick up shellbags. For this special kind of registry key, you would need a special kind of cleaner, such as Shellbag Analyzer & Cleaner. It is capable of locating hundreds of shellbags in just a few seconds and it can erase them just as fast.

Shellbag Analyzer & Cleaner is available as a freeware application, for Windows XP, Vista, Win 7 and Win 8. It provides support for both 32 and 64-bit operating systems and it doesn't require any special tools or services. What's more, the application doesn't need to be installed. All you have to do is download and run its executable.

The rather large user interface consists mainly of a blank list and three options, for analyzing, stopping the analysis and for cleaning up. Once you hit the Analyze option, the list will start filling up with hundreds of results in a matter of seconds. Each shellbag is displayed together with various details, like its corresponding folder, path, slot key and number and more.

The results can be filtered to show nothing but deleted folders, existing ones, folders on a network and other items. When performing a cleanup task, the application will present a new set of options. They allow you to choose what to delete. For example, you may erase data about deleted local folders, folders on a network or removable drive, search results and more.

Besides deciding what data to erase, you can also set the application to perform multiple passes, to prevent the information from being recovered. To make sure that no information will fall in the wrong hands, you can set the application to scramble dates, to clean invalid shellbags and more.