Secure Empty Trash

Secure Empty Trash
Mac Tip #233/08-March-2006

You can chop up old floppies to destroy them and the data they contain, and you can securely erase a whole drive by writing over the data up to 35 times, but what say you just want to erase a couple of files?

The answer is to use the Secure Empty Trash option. Warning: you won’t be able to retrieve files deleted with this option.

First check your Trash to see what’s in there. If you’ve trashed something you didn’t intend to, or you’re not sure about drag it out of the Trash now.

Now locate the files you want to remove forever, put them in the Trash and go to the Finder’s Application menu. Instead of choosing Empty Trash… choose Secure Empty Trash.

Your securely deleted files are now gone forever. Apple say this:

Without going into too much techno-geek-speak, it deletes your file and writes over the drive space where it once lived so many times that agents from top-secret government agencies that we’re not even supposed to know exist couldn’t resurrect those files. In short, use Secure Empty Trash when you really want your files gone for good.

Tagged as: data, delete, erase, files, secure, trash, wipe

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