Wipe searches Windows and supported applications for local traces, then deletes the items the user selects. Its targets include temporary files, browser caches, histories and cookies. Wipe does not scan every file and infer its purpose. It follows a publisher-maintained Database of known cleaning locations, and an application absent from that catalogue falls outside its coverage.
Cleaning zones define the scan
The Database separates Windows components and third-party applications into cleaning zones. The Advanced screen lets the user select zones individually before a run. This makes a cleaning total a result of the enabled zones, not a complete inventory of everything an installed application may have stored.
Auto Deselect watches zones that repeatedly contain no removable data and temporarily unchecks them. After another interval Wipe enables a skipped zone to test it again. Resetting the Auto Deselect history forces a fresh selection cycle. A routine scan can therefore omit a known zone without removing that zone from the Database.
Locked files remain on disk
A running program, driver or antivirus component can hold a file open. Windows then denies the deletion even when Wipe identified the path correctly. Wipe can report an access or permission error, but that report does not remove the locked file. Closing the process or changing the operating context may be necessary before another attempt.
Auto Exclude reduces repeated failures by adding problem files to an exclusion list. Later cleaning runs stop retrying those entries until the exclusion resets on its schedule or the user resets it. This avoids the same error at every run, but it also means the file can continue to exist while ordinary results look cleaner. The exclusion list needs inspection when a specific trace matters.
Secure deletion requires selected options
Wipe can rename a file with random characters, reset its dates, overwrite part of its content or overwrite the whole file before deletion. It can repeat overwrite passes or apply a named security protocol. These actions are selectable settings. Installing Wipe or running an ordinary cleanup does not prove that every removed file received every overwrite step.
More overwrite passes add work and do not change files that a previous run already deleted normally. The publisher also qualifies the documentation behind some external overwrite protocols, so a protocol name alone cannot guarantee a particular forensic result on every storage device. Modern storage controllers, remapping and solid-state behavior sit below the cleaning zone that Wipe sees.
The publisher distributes more than one edition and can vary availability by country. A trial or limited build may not expose the same options described for another edition. The safe workflow checks the selected zones, reviews locked and excluded items, then confirms the pre-deletion settings required for that run instead of treating one Clean button as a universal privacy result.
