ContextCleaner: see every entry in the Windows 11 right-click menu, and which app added it — on the Microsoft Store.

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Guided workflow variation

The app is gone.Its menu entry is not.

Uninstallers routinely leave shell registrations behind. The entry still draws, points at a program that no longer exists, and nothing in Windows offers to clean it up.

ContextCleaner finds orphaned right-click entries left by uninstalled software, shows the registration and the missing file it points to, and removes them reversibly.

Pay once. Own it forever.

One-time purchase on the Microsoft Store · No subscription · Instant install

Get it from Microsoft

Buy through the Microsoft Store—instant install, automatic updates, and a Microsoft receipt for easy expensing. No account needed on our site, and no subscription on Store purchases.

Full ContextCleaner overview
One-time purchase No telemetry Local-first

windows 11 & 10 · no regedit · snapshot before every apply · no network requests

If this sounds like your week

Uninstalling is not required to be tidy.

An uninstaller only removes what its author remembered to remove. Shell registrations are frequently missed, especially when an app registered across more than one surface, or when it was updated between versions that used different registration methods. The result is a menu entry for software you no longer have — sometimes doing nothing when clicked, sometimes producing an error.

Where tooling usually breaks

Nothing takes responsibility for cleaning it up.

Windows will not remove a registration just because the target file is missing, because a missing file is not proof of anything — it could be a network path, or a program mid-update. So the entry persists indefinitely. Reinstalling the app to uninstall it again is a common suggestion and frequently does not help, because the second uninstall has the same blind spots as the first.

Where ContextCleaner lands

Confirm it is orphaned, then remove it for good.

ContextCleaner shows the registration alongside the file it points to, which makes an orphan easy to identify: the entry exists, the target does not. Removal is handled the same way as any other entry, meaning it is reversible rather than a deletion — useful, because a path that looks missing is occasionally just unavailable. If the entry turns out to have been doing something you wanted, one undo step brings it back.

Pay once. Own it forever.

One-time purchase on the Microsoft Store · No subscription · Instant install

Get it from Microsoft

Buy through the Microsoft Store—instant install, automatic updates, and a Microsoft receipt for easy expensing. No account needed on our site, and no subscription on Store purchases.

Learn more about ContextCleaner

windows 11 & 10 · no regedit · snapshot before every apply · no network requests

What you get

Feature highlights

Sees all four menu surfaces

Classic commands, the COM add-ons installed apps register, Windows 11 modern and packaged items, and the New submenu—together in one searchable list.

Shows where every entry came from

Each row names the app, DLL, or package behind it, where it was discovered, and which file types it applies to.

Remove one or clear the whole view

Flip a single toggle, multi-select a batch, or remove every third-party entry in the current view with one button.

A dedicated New menu cleanup

Turn off the document types you never create. The file type keeps working—only the New-menu shortcut goes away, and it is a reversible rename.

Review before anything is written

Changes stage as pending until you press Apply, and machine-wide edits are batched into a single administrator prompt per apply.

Undo that survives restarts

Undo and redo are stored on disk rather than in memory—up to 25 steps each—alongside one-click snapshot restore.

A verifiable record of every change

A hash-chained (SHA-256) local audit log with a one-tap integrity check that reports the exact entry where the chain broke.

Private by default

No network requests at all, no account, no ads, no third-party analytics. Diagnostics exports replace personal folder names first.

Especially when

  • Remove entries from the Windows 11 right-click menu without opening Registry Editor yourself
  • Find out which app added a right-click entry, and why deleting a registry key did not remove it
  • Clean up the right-click New submenu without breaking the underlying file types

Who benefits

Real-world scenarios

The trial that overstayed

You tried a utility, uninstalled it the same day, and months later its entry is still in every right-click menu.

The entry shows a backing path that no longer exists. You disable it, apply, and it is gone from the menu on your next right-click.

The entry that errors

Clicking a leftover entry produces a "file not found" dialog, which is worse than useless.

ContextCleaner identifies which surface still registers it — often a COM add-on rather than a classic verb — and removes that registration.

The migrated machine

A PC that has been through several rounds of software churn has a menu full of entries you cannot map to anything currently installed.

You filter to third-party, sort through what no longer resolves, and clear them as a batch with a snapshot taken first.

Deep dive

Why uninstallers leave shell entries behind

Shell integration is registered in more than one way, and an uninstaller generally removes only the specific registrations its build knew about. Several common situations produce leftovers.

The first is surface drift across versions. An application that originally shipped a classic shell verb and later moved to a COM handler, or added a packaged modern-menu command, ends up with registrations from more than one era. The current uninstaller cleans up the current mechanism. The older registration is not in its list, so it stays.

The second is hive mismatch. A registration written machine-wide requires elevation to remove. If the uninstaller runs without it, or the user declines the prompt, the removal quietly fails while the uninstall itself reports success. The same happens in reverse: an app installed per-machine but run per-user can leave a per-user registration the machine-wide uninstaller never looks at.

The third is registration under file-type associations rather than under the application's own class. Archivers and media tools frequently register against many individual extensions. Removing the app's primary class registration leaves the per-extension ones intact.

The fourth is simply incomplete uninstall logic, which is common in small utilities and portable applications that were never really designed to be removed cleanly.

The consequence for you is that "reinstall and uninstall again" usually does not work, because the second attempt has the same gaps as the first. What does work is identifying the surviving registration directly and disabling it. ContextCleaner treats these entries like any other: it shows where the registration lives and what it points at, and it removes it non-destructively so the action is reversible. That last part matters more than it might seem, because an apparently missing target file is not always proof of an orphan — a path on a disconnected drive or network share looks identical to a deleted one. Making the removal reversible means a wrong guess costs one undo rather than a reinstall.

Trusted by pragmatic desktop users

Built for people who prefer tools that stay local.

Real workflows: focus timers that stay visible, batches that never leave the disk, and renames you can rewind.

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Our Core Moat

Engineered to respect your system boundaries.

System Resource Monitor (Idle State Comparison)
Automata Labs low idle memory footprint compared to generic Electron applications

Lightweight Native Stack

Compiled Rust core wrapped inside an optimized Tauri shell. No heavy background node loops or duplicate Chromium engines cooking your memory footprint (<25MB idle RAM).

100% Local-First Privacy

Executes entirely on-device with full offline isolation. Absolute zero background telemetry policies, no metrics aggregation, and zero mandatory cloud-sync accounts.

Perpetual Fallback Licenses

Pay a single, clear one-time purchase price. Own your specific native software utility execution tier permanently without artificial subscription paywalls or ongoing usage tax.

FAQ

Straight answers—no glossary dump

How do I remove a context menu entry for software I already uninstalled?

The registration outlived the program. ContextCleaner lists the orphaned entry with the registration origin and the file path it points to, so you can confirm it is a leftover and disable it. The change is reversible and needs no registry editing.

Why does reinstalling and uninstalling again not fix it?

Because the second uninstall has the same blind spots as the first. Leftovers usually come from a registration the uninstaller does not know about — an older mechanism, a machine-wide key it lacked rights to remove, or per-extension registrations outside the app's own class.

How can I tell an entry is genuinely orphaned?

The entry exists but its backing file does not. ContextCleaner shows both, so the mismatch is visible. Be a little careful with paths on removable or network drives, which look missing when simply disconnected — and since removal is reversible, a wrong call costs one undo.

Do I need administrator rights?

Only if the leftover was registered machine-wide, which is common for uninstall remnants. ContextCleaner batches all machine-wide changes into a single administrator prompt per apply, and tells you if Windows refused any.

What does it need to run?

Windows 11 or Windows 10, and the Microsoft Edge WebView2 runtime, which is already present on virtually all Windows 11 PCs. ContextCleaner does not install WebView2 for you. It runs as a standard user; only machine-wide entries need administrator approval, requested once per apply.

Is it private, and how do I get it?

ContextCleaner makes no network requests at all — it requests no networking permission from Windows, so there is no telemetry, no analytics, no ads, and no account. Snapshots and change history stay on your PC. It is a one-time purchase on the Microsoft Store; use the Microsoft Store button on this page for the current listing and price.

Related pages

Every entry came from somewhere. Find out where. Remove the right-click entries you never use. Manage the COM add-ons installed apps put in your menu. A snapshot before every apply. Not as advice — as a gate.

Every right-click entry,
and the app that put it there.

ContextCleaner scans all four surfaces Windows builds the right-click menu from—classic commands, app add-ons, Windows 11 modern and packaged items, and the New submenu—names the app behind each entry, and lets you remove what you never use without opening Registry Editor. A snapshot is written before each apply, and undo survives restarts.

Pay once. Own it forever.

One-time purchase on the Microsoft Store · No subscription · Instant install

Get it from Microsoft

Buy through the Microsoft Store—instant install, automatic updates, and a Microsoft receipt for easy expensing. No account needed on our site, and no subscription on Store purchases.

Open full product page

Technical specifications

Technical specifications for procurement

Spec Implementation
Data Sovereignty Menu edits, snapshots, and the full change history stay on your PC; diagnostics exports replace personal folder names first
Telemetry Status None; no account, no ads, no third-party analytics
Core Runtime Tauri 2 + Rust native Windows app; requires the Microsoft Edge WebView2 runtime, which it does not install for you
Network Requirements Makes no network requests at all and requests no networking permission from Windows
Deployment Compatibility Windows 11 and Windows 10; no version gating, so Windows 10 simply shows fewer modern and packaged entries. Microsoft Store
Scope All four menu surfaces: classic commands, COM app add-ons, Windows 11 modern and packaged items, and the New submenu
Provenance Each entry names the app, DLL, or package behind it, where it was discovered, and the file types it applies to
Reversibility Snapshot written before each apply (the apply stops if it cannot be saved), one-click restore, and disk-persisted undo and redo up to 25 steps each
Guardrails Entries File Explorer depends on are protected from removal even by bulk actions; machine-wide edits use one administrator prompt per apply
Accountability Tamper-evident, hash-chained (SHA-256) audit log with one-tap integrity verification, stored only on your PC
Access System tray presence with a customizable hotkey and Ctrl+K quick actions across 14 rebindable shortcuts
Approximate size 30 MB installed or less