Such a variety of software tools can be found which addresss the matter of hard disk cleanup. A popular example is called Media Detective, which may be found on the internet. However there are more things these products are capable of, many can also clean up orphaned data, clean up porn files, detect the presence of illegal or unlicensed software, and analyzed used and free space.

Applications specifically designed to clean up a computer drives come in several varieties. The most common of these are the the hard disk cleaners like Microsoft's Disk Cleanup utility, that are used to get rid of non-critical files and give back usable space in the process. There are other tools that can protect your privacy, clean up internet tracks and typed URL entries stored as history within your browser records, tools such as Evidence Eliminator. Another category is the 'porn eraser', that can pick up on the existence of porn or other suspicious items and assists the user in deletion of any porn files that are not wanted. And a final category of cleaners consists of forensic style software which overwrites deleted data found in unused areas of the disk, so that it cannot be retrieved again by any means.