With the furtherance of technology, security is one of the biggest concerns. Whether it is a Windows or Mac computer, none of the devices stand a chance when it comes to advanced cyber-attacks, identity theft, and malware. So, keeping data safe on your computer is one’s own responsibility.
Sometimes you need to erase data from your hard drive completely whether before selling your old device. Dragging a file to Trash Bin and emptying the trash bin doesn’t delete or remove the file completely. It simply removes the file from your Mac’s file directory. The file can be easily recoverable with proper recovery tools. So, to make sure what’s deleted stays deleted, you need to either follow a few steps or get a pro.
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Making Your Deleted Files Unrecoverable Manually
To make sure your deleted files stay unrecoverable, delete the file by dragging to Trash Bin. Now, go to Finder-> Click Secure Empty Trash. Performing this action will remove the file from Mac’s directory and also the hard drive occupied by the file is overwritten with junk.
You can’t choose the specific files for complete erasure but you can erase the free space on your Mac’s hard drive. With this, it looks out any areas of the drive marked available for new data and overwrites it with junk.
To erase the space on your hard drive, you need to follow some steps:
- Go to Finder.
- Click Go To and select Utilities.
- Under Utilities, select Disk Utility.
- Now select the drive, you want to work on, click Erase tab and then click Erase Free Space.
- You will get a sheet with the different levels of erasure listed.
- An option, Zero Out Deleted Files, writes zeros over the drive’s free space.
Note: There are other options as well, if you want more scrutinized erasure, you can choose accordingly. Overwriting your data will take time according to the option chosen.
This can be a way to keep your files away from the intruders after deleting. Well, there is a simple method as well. You need to get the help of pro software.
Making Your Deleted Files Unrecoverable With Third Party Software
A good software for removing your files completely is SafeWiper Data Wiper. SafeWiper Data Wiper is available for both Windows and Mac. The software assimilates 13 data erasing algorithms to delete the target files. You get 6 file deletion modes to choose from. It will make data unrecoverable whether it is on hard disks, SD card or USB drive. Follow the step by step guide to making your deleted files unrecoverable with this software:
- Download and Install SafeWipe on your Mac.
- Choose the Data Erasing Mode.
Once the software is installed, launch the program. Choose a wiping mode from the list of wiping modes. For now, you can select, ‘Wipe Unused Space’ as the deleted files are labeled in free space on the hard drive.
Select Data Erasing Algorithm (Optional)
This option is not necessary to choose. There are 13 different data erasing algorithms available. You can choose any of them or stick to default one as well. To choose a data erasing algorithm, you can locate settings from the left sidebar.
Note: The deeper an algorithm cleans, the more time it takes to erase the data permanently.
Erasing The Deleted Files
Now, select the drive on which you want to perform the task. Click ‘Wipe Now’ button which is located in the right-side pane of the software interface. It will start to wipe the data with the selected wiping algorithm to completely destroy the deleted files.
Get It Here
So, these are the two ways to delete your deleted files completely. Try them and let us know what works for you.