For Revit and AutoCAD workstations

Remove the Digital Dead Load.

Reclaim storage, reduce system clutter, and keep your engineering workstation running efficiently.

In structural engineering the dead load is the permanent weight a structure carries. DeadLoad removes the dead load Autodesk products leave on Windows workstations, and keeps the records worth keeping.

Get DeadLoad View on GitHub

Pre-release. No public release yet: build it from source and install it from your own Chocolatey feed.

The DeadLoad window on its Cleanup page: 8.0 MB potentially reclaimable, marked Estimated, beside a capacity bar for the local disk, with Analyze Again and Review Cleanup buttons. Below, category rows with checkboxes, sizes, item counts and risk badges: Autodesk crash reports and Temporary files selected as Routine, Revit web cache unselected as Review. The status bar reads Sample data. — The DeadLoad window after Analyze Storage (sample data).

Features

Less overhead. More capacity.

A transparent Windows cleanup utility that helps identify and remove unnecessary files without putting engineering work at risk.

Reclaim storage

Removes temp files, web caches, crash reports and old installer logs past their age limits, and compresses Revit journals into monthly archives.

Clear visibility

Every item decision goes to the run log with the rule behind it. Report-only mode plans every category and changes nothing.

Configurable by policy

Every setting has a Group Policy template. Policy wins over local settings, which win over the shipped defaults, and each effective value shows its source.

Measured results

The defaults come from measurements on seven engineering workstations. Space recovered is counted from confirmed deletions, not estimated.

How it works

Analyze, review, clean.

DeadLoad runs unattended as SYSTEM from its own scheduled tasks, so no one has to remember to run it. You decide how much it may do before it does anything. Users analyze, review and clean their own files in the DeadLoad window, without admin rights.

Analyze

A report-only run scans every enabled category and plans what it would delete, compress or keep, and why. It changes nothing. In the DeadLoad window, Analyze Storage does the same for the user's own profile.
Review

Read the plan before anything is removed. Administrators read the run log, which names the rule behind each decision, and keep report-only on for a pilot week. In the DeadLoad window users see every path, size and reason before they confirm; Routine categories start selected, Review categories do not, and Restricted categories are never cleaned from there.

The DeadLoad window is part of the pre-release tray app.
Clean

As SYSTEM: weekly maintenance (Sunday 03:00 by default), a daily disk pressure check that also runs on low-disk events, and an on-demand task users may start but not change. In the DeadLoad window, where policy allows it, only the reviewed items a fresh check still selects are deleted, and every skipped item is listed with its reason.

Screenshots

The DeadLoad window.

From analysis to a finished cleanup of a user's own files. These images show sample data, not measurements; they follow your light or dark setting.

Cleanup page after Analyze Storage: estimated reclaimable space, the local disk capacity bar, and every category with its size, item count and risk badge. Restricted categories show a lock and the line Managed by your administrator; not cleaned from here. A This computer card shows the last scheduled maintenance and a Request a cleanup button. — Analyze: estimated space per category, each with its risk tier (sample data).

Review cleanup page: the space selected for removal, marked Estimated, a warning that deleted files are not moved to the Recycle Bin and cannot be restored by DeadLoad, and a table of included paths with category, size, last used and why each is listed. Back and Clean Selected Items buttons. — Review: every path that would be removed, with its size, age and reason (sample data).

Confirmation dialog titled Clean selected items?, naming the number of files, categories and estimated size, and stating that deleted files cannot be restored by DeadLoad. Cancel has the focus; the other button is Clean Selected Items. — Confirm: a last check before anything is deleted (sample data).

Cleanup complete page: space reclaimed, marked Recovered, against the earlier estimate, counts of deleted and skipped items, and a table of skipped items with the reason for each, such as used too recently or file in use. — Complete: space recovered from confirmed deletions, and each skipped item with its reason (sample data).

Estimated, then recovered

Analyze and Review show estimated space. After Clean, the window shows the space recovered from confirmed deletions and lists every item it skipped, such as a file in use or one used too recently, with the reason. Skipped items are left in place, never forced.

Deleted files are not moved to the Recycle Bin and cannot be restored by DeadLoad.

What it examines

Built-in categories, with their limits.

A category ships enabled only when its paths were measured on real workstations. Each one has a risk tier that decides how a user's cleanup review will offer it: Routine files programs recreate or no longer need, selected by default; Review offered but not selected, since removing them can cause reprocessing or a download; Restricted shown to users but never cleaned from the DeadLoad window, left to the scheduled runs as policy configures.

On by default

Categories enabled by default
Category	Default rule	Tier
Windows temporary files	Deleted after 7 days; nothing newer than 24 hours.	Routine
User temporary files	Deleted after 7 days. Files of a Revit or AutoCAD session that is still running are kept.	Routine
Revit web cache	Deleted after 14 days. Revit rebuilds it.	Review
Revit content cache (PacCache)	No routine rule: Revit manages its size. Given up only under disk pressure, keeping its Logs folder and .json files. Revit downloads content again when it is needed.	Review
Revit journals	Compressed after 3 days into monthly archives; each entry is verified before the original is deleted. Archives are deleted after 180 days. Under disk pressure only, older journals go, keeping the newest 20. Revit's own journal retention is raised to 14 days so Revit does not delete what DeadLoad keeps.	Restricted
Autodesk crash reports (CER)	Deleted after 30 days; the newest 5 are kept.	Routine
Autodesk installer logs	Deleted after 90 days; the newest 5 are kept.	Routine

Off by default, and why

Categories disabled by default
Category	Why it is off
Revit collaboration cache	Removing it can lose changes that were saved but not yet synchronized. When enabled: under disk pressure only, per project folder, untouched for 90 days.
Data of Revit versions no longer installed	The measured folders hold journals and model backups; deleting a whole folder is a records decision for the owner.
Autodesk installation files (C:\Autodesk)	Updates, repairs and reinstalls may need them. When enabled: never Network License Manager, never a folder an installed product names as its install source.
AutoCAD graphics cache	Measured at most 34 MB per user and year: too small to justify a default rule.
AutoCAD automatic save files and error logs	Documented paths with almost nothing found on the measured workstations. Automatic save files can recover a drawing after a crash.

Civil 3D is not supported: it was not measured. Under disk pressure (free space below the larger of 30 GB and 5 percent), pressure tiers give up the oldest eligible items until free space reaches the larger of 45 GB and 8 percent. Administrators can add custom targets, only under an allowlist of folders.

Safety and transparency

Built to run as SYSTEM on production workstations.

Review before delete

Report-only mode and -WhatIf produce the full plan and change nothing. Run a pilot in report-only first.

Protected data types and folders

Never acted on: *.rvt *.rfa *.rte *.rft *.dwg *.dwt *.dws *.dxf *.bak *.nwd *.nwf *.nwc *.ifc *.pdf. Never entered: Documents, Desktop, OneDrive, and Autodesk Desktop Connector, ACC Docs and BIM 360 workspaces.

Process guard

While a user runs Revit, AutoCAD, Navisworks or DWG TrueView, DeadLoad skips that user's Autodesk categories. Locked files are skipped, and every file is checked again right before it is acted on.

No reparse points, no network

Junctions, symbolic links, mount points and cloud placeholders are never traversed or deleted, at any depth. The engine makes no HTTP calls; its targets ship in the package and nothing is downloaded at run time.

Logs and events

Each run writes a log naming the rule behind every decision, a JSON report a monitoring tool can read, and Windows events under the source DeadLoad (Application log).

Open source

Every line is on GitHub under GPL-3.0, including the safety tests that run on Windows PowerShell 5.1 and PowerShell 7.

Deletion is permanent. DeadLoad has no quarantine and no undo. What it deletes is gone, so it acts only on items past their limits, never on protected data, and logs each one.

For IT administrators

One package, one policy, nothing to babysit.

Group Policy

ADMX and ADML templates cover every setting: machine policy for the engine and the tray, user policy for the tray. Get-DeadLoadConfiguration -Trace shows each effective value and whether it came from policy, a local setting or the default.

Open the policy generator or read the recommended policy.

Chocolatey

Install, upgrade and uninstall need no restart. Parameters: /NoTray, /ReportOnly, /InstallAdmxLocally, and /PurgeData on uninstall.

Signed

The build signs every script, module, data file and binary when Authenticode signing is configured. A signed engine refuses to run when a file changed after signing.

Monitoring

Alert on event 1001 at Error, 2002 (pressure target not reachable), 3000 (run error) and 3003 (integrity check failed), and on a stale last-run.json.

Install

Get DeadLoad

No public release yet. DeadLoad is pre-release. Build the Chocolatey package from source and install it from your own feed or folder. Try it on a test machine first.

1. Build

git clone https://github.com/DailenG/DeadLoad.git
cd DeadLoad
pwsh -NoProfile -File build\Build.ps1

Needs PowerShell 7, the .NET 8 SDK (for the tray) and Chocolatey (to pack). Without signing configured the build is an unsigned development build and says so.

2. Install

choco install deadload --source <folder or feed> -y --params "'/ReportOnly'"

Runs on Windows 10 21H2 or later and Windows 11, with Windows PowerShell 5.1 and .NET Framework 4.8. Full steps: OPERATIONS.md.