Install Monitor, Audit Log and Portable Mode

This page covers three features that help you stay in control: the Install Monitor, which records what an installer does; the audit log, which records what UniClean does; and portable mode, which keeps UniClean's data next to the program.

Install Monitor

Start a monitoring session, install a program, then stop the session. While it runs, UniClean records every file and folder created in the usual install locations (Program Files, ProgramData, AppData, Local AppData and your profile, up to 100,000 files) and compares the registry before and after. The trace is linked to the app that appeared. When you later uninstall that app, UniClean can use the trace to offer exactly what the installer put down, with a confidence of 100.

1. Open <strong>Install Monitor</strong> and give the session a label.
2. Optionally choose the installer to launch.
3. Install the program, then stop the session.
4. The trace is saved and attached to the program when it appears in the Applications list.

Audit log

Every plan, process kill, vault write, verification, uninstaller run, removal, restore, purge, setting change and console command is written to a local SQLite database and to a plain-text daily file named uniclean-YYYY-MM-DD.log in the logs folder of the data directory. Each entry has the time, operation id, action, target, tier, whether it was a dry run, the outcome and details, including the state of the path before and after.

• Open <strong>Activity Log</strong> to browse entries.
• Export the whole log as CSV or JSON from that page.
• The audit log can contain file paths and program names, so treat exports as sensitive.

Portable mode

Normally UniClean keeps its data in %LOCALAPPDATA%\UniClean. In portable mode it keeps the vault, database and logs in a UniCleanData folder beside the executable.

1. Use the portable executable build of UniClean (separate from the NSIS and MSI installers).
2. Create an empty file named <code>uniclean.portable</code> in the same folder as <code>uniclean.exe</code>.
3. Start UniClean. It now stores everything in <code>UniCleanData</code> next to the executable.
4. WebView2 must be present on the PC you use it on.

Two other ways to choose the data folder exist for testing and virtual machines: the UNICLEAN_DATA_DIR environment variable, which wins over portable mode, and the uniclean-cli command-line console, whose destructive commands are dry runs unless you add --live.

See also: Privacy, Data, SmartScreen and Installer Notes.