After an earlier public preview in 2022, Microsoft has quietly officially launched a new PC cleaner app in the Microsoft Store in the United States on both Windows 10 and Windows 11. Appropriately called Microsoft PC Manager, the free app can help take care of your PC, by boosting its performance, checking in running processes, and even performing a deep cleanup.
Spotted by the folks at Windows Latest, this app was originally a Microsoft China project and has now expanded to additional markets. The app is currently openly listed in the Microsoft Store and has its own website. If you want a direct link, it also can be downloaded by clicking here and then following the pop-up link to the store. It’s a pretty lightweight app, too and it weighs in at just under 32.2MB in size. The most current version is 3.3.14.0.
Anyway, as you can see from the gallery below, there’s a lot that Microsoft PC Manager can do. The overall look of the app matches the aesthetics of Windows 11, right down to the dark mode theme. It’s a mini-sized application that can’t be taken full screen, complete with a clean sidebar with a Home, Protection, Storage, Apps, and Toolbox section. If you like, you also can start the app automatically, and use its “Smart boost” feature to boost your PC when there’s high RAM usage or more than 1GB of temporary files on your PC.
The main home page of the app has sections dedicated to freeing up PC resources and cleaning temporary files. There’s also a Health check section there, which will help you disable startup apps, and clean the browser cache, temporary files, and system logs. If you’re worried about running out of disk space, you also can check on rogue processes with the Process section, and perform a disk cleanup with the Deep Cleanup section by clearing app caches, the recycle bin, web caches, and more. Note that clicking on the process section will take you to the dedicated Apps subsection of the sidebar, and clicking on the Deep Cleanup section will take you to the dedicated Storage subsection in the sidebar.
As for the Protection the app offers, you can scan threats with Windows Security, check for updates in Windows update, and change default browser settings. You even can repair your taskbar by removing toolbars, change default apps, and block pop-ups.
The PC Manager app goes beyond just tools to clean your PC, though. It also has the option to show a toolbar on your desktop, with quick links to a screenshot tool, Notepad, and Microsoft Edge. There’s even a dedicated Toolbox section, where you can launch the voice recorder, start live Captios, the Calculator, Edge links, a Currency Converter, and add custom links for quick access.
It is nice to see Microsoft launch its tool to help you manage your PC’s performance. Of course, Defender, and other things like the Task Manager, and Disk Cleanup tool can do most of these tasks for you, but having them all in one place is more convenient. Considering the tool’s competitor, CCleaner can mess with the system registry and was once labeled as an unwanted program by Microsoft, this is the safe way to go should you want to take care of your new laptop or desktop.
