Worried about .pyc files and __pycache__ directories? Fear not! PyClean is here to help. Finally the single-command clean up for Python bytecode files in your favorite directories. On any platform.

pyclean .
pyclean . --dry-run --verbose
pyclean --help

PyClean can clean up leftovers, generated data and temporary files from popular Python development tools in their default locations, along with Python bytecode. The following topics are currently covered:

Cache (general purpose folder for several tools, e.g. Python eggs, legacy Pytest)
Coverage (coverage database, and supported file formats)
Packaging (build files and folders)
Pytest (build files and folders)
Ruff (ruff cache folder)
Jupyter (notebook checkpoints) – optional
Mypy (mypy cache folder) – optional
Pyright (pyright app cache folder) – optional
Tox (tox environments) – optional

pyclean . --debris
pyclean . --debris all
pyclean . -d jupyter -n -v

PyClean also lets you remove free-form targets using globbing. Note that this is potentially dangerous: You can delete everything anywhere in the file system, including the entire project you’re working on. For this reason, the --erase option has a few artificial constraints:

It doesn’t do recursive deletion by itself, which means that you have to specify the directory and its contents, separately and explicitly.
The above entails that you’re responsible for the deletion order, i.e. removal of a directory will only work if you asked to delete all files inside first.
You’re prompted interactively to confirm deletion, unless you specify the --yes option, in addition.

pyclean . --erase tmp/**/* tmp/

PyClean can safely detect and remove empty directories that are left in your project after refactoring code.

pyclean . --folders --verbose

PyClean integrates with Git's git clean command to remove untracked files from version-controlled directories. The --git-clean (or -g) flag runs after all other cleanup operations.

By default, Git prompts interactively to confirm which files to delete. Use --dry-run to preview, or --yes to force deletion without prompts. The --ignore patterns are honored as exclusions.

pyclean . --debris all --git-clean --dry-run
pyclean . --ignore .idea .vscode --git-clean --yes

Note: Git must be installed for this feature. If a directory is not under version control, a warning is logged and pyclean continues.