Why erasing free space

Unless, of course, you erase your Mac's free space. On macOS, secure erase means your data is replaced with a random set of zeroes and ones. Which app should you use? There is a free Shredder tool that is a part of CleanMyMac X — you may use this simple eraser to do the job.

You can both easily and safely wipe the free space on your Mac to prevent future recovery of deleted files and data. Click the Apple icon top left and select About This Mac. Select System Report and scroll down to Storage. Now, select the drive from the list at the top and look for Medium Type. Removal of this nature takes a little longer than a quick empty of your trash, but it does ensure that all data gets rewritten, leaving no chance of recovery at a later date. For best results place SDelete Otherwise, you will be asked to locate the executable.

All you have to do is select the drive to clean from the drop down, select the three pass clean or the zero method, and press the run button. You can also increase the number of passes but remember the Clean option already runs a triple pass algorithm.

The program runs SDelete in a console window with the required arguments. NET Framework 4 which is in Windows 10 and 8 by default. Any useful feedback you have can be left in the comments. CCleaner is probably the most famous Windows junk file cleaning utility around. It also offers a function called Drive Wiper to securely erase entire drives or the free space on your drives.

Then select the overwrite method and finally the drive s that you want to wipe. CCleaner comes as a portable version or a setup installer. Download CCleaner. Disk Scrubber is from and is a very simple tool to operate with a nice and clean user interface. In addition to free space cleaning, the program can also securely erase files and folders.

Disk Scrubber has a rather novel feature of letting you create your own erase algorithm along with your own custom writing pattern. However, the last option of Custom is the most interesting. Click Edit and a new window opens where you can create your own erasing method. Enter the patterns you want to use in the bottom text box in the order they are to be used. Zeros, ones, checkerboard, random, and a custom pattern can be used in any combination.

Type your own text into the top text box for the custom pattern. Download Hard Disk Scrubber. I use Xorin and i recommend you to try this because all is for free and this software have many methods to erase data permanently. As far as I can see, Xorin does not wipe free space and only does a full drive erase. You can erase many drives at the same time.

A single pass overwrite, if completed successfully, provides zero chance of recovering the file through any means available to the public. Gutmann wrote a paper about 15 or 20 years ago, about how in theory overwritten data could be recovered. There have been reports of overwritten data being recovered but in all reported cases that we have investigated, the data was not actually overwritten.

SSDs are different. In actual fact, we link to the Gutmann paper in another article. A refreshed SSD will run nearly as good as new again! DBAN wipes drives completely and leaves nothing behind. I used the default Windows Cipher command on a GB external 2. Browse All Linux Articles Browse All Buying Guides. Best Portable Monitors. Best Gaming Keyboards. Best Drones. Best 4K TVs. Best iPhone 13 Cases. Best Tech Gifts for Kids Aged Best 8K TVs. Best VR Headsets. Best iPad Mini Cases.

Best Gifts for Cutting the Cord. Best Bluetooth Speakers. Awesome PC Accessories. Best Linux Laptops. Best Gaming Monitors. Best iPads. The time of completing this operation will vary with the amount of data the partition contains and the wiping method you have chosen before. Just wait patiently until the process finishes for the best wipe result.

In this way, your hard drive will be wiped securely. After wiping the partition, this partition will be shown as Unformatted. If you are wiping for selling computer, you can ignore it. But if you want to put this partition into use again, you have to format the partition to NTFS or FAT or other file system you want and assign a drive letter for it. There are 3 professional and reliable hard drive wipe utilities. With the help of them, I can either remove the deleted files completely or wipe the whole hard drive within a few clicks.

I will never worry about leaking my private data. Click to tweet. If you desire to clear all the data on the partition or disk and wipe every deleted file from your free disk space, then MiniTool Partition Wizard is a better choice. What do you use to securely wipe free space on your hard drive? Do you have any problem while using the tools mentioned above? Just share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below, or you can send an email to [email protected]. Download Partition Wizard.

Summary : Do you know that your deleted files might still exist on the free space on your hard drive? Note: There is no need to continually wipe the free disk space on your computer, as it will only increase the wear and tear of the drive and reduce its lifespan , especially on SSD drives.

Warning: Do not select Entire Drive , as this will erase all the data on your hard drive. Note: Pass refers to how many times CCleaner writes over the spot on the hard drive. The more times CCleaner writes to that spot, the longer time the operation will take but the harder the file will be to recover.