If someone use a recovery software on your Mac before the files are overwritten, they could scan out the deleted files. That's why you need secure empty trash feature, which make the files unrecoverable by writing a series of meaningless ones and zeroes over deleted files. The secure empty trash feature used to be available on OS X Yosemite and earlier. Secure Empty Trash on OS X Yosemite and Earlier But since El Capitan, Apple has cut the feature because it is can not work on flash storage, such as SSD (which is adopted by Apple to its new Mac/MacBook models.) Therefore, if your Mac/MacBook are running on El Capitan or later, you'll need other ways to empty the Trash securely. To empty the Trash securely by default, choose Finder > Preferences > Advanced, then select "Empty Trash securely." If your Mac/MacBook runs on OS X 10.10 Yosemite or earlier, you can use the built in secure empty trash feature easily:ĭrag the files into the Trash, then choose Finder > Secure Empty Trash. Securely Empty Trash on OX El Capitan with Terminal You should notice that using secure empty trash feature to delete files will takes a bit longer than simply emptying the Trash. Since secure empty trash feature has been removed from OX 10.11 El Capitan, you can use terminal command to securely clean up the Trash. Type the command: srm -v followed by a space. How to Securely Remove a File from OS X El Capitan. Please don't leave out the space and do not press Enter at this point. #FORCE EMPTY TRASH MAC HIGH SIERRA HOW TO# Start by finding the file you want to delete in finder. Open a Terminal window (Command + Space, type terminal) 3. Type the srm -v command in the terminal window then drag your file from the finder window to the terminal window to add the path. Hitting enter after typing the full command. Then drag a file from Finder to the Terminal window, the command would look like this:Ĭlick Enter. However, the srm -v command was abandoned by macOS Sierra. So Sierra users can't use the Terminal method, either. To secure your files on macOS Sierra, you're recommended to encrypted your whole disk with FileVault. #FORCE EMPTY TRASH MAC HIGH SIERRA FULL#.#FORCE EMPTY TRASH MAC HIGH SIERRA HOW TO#.If you get an error message, you will need to use the sudo command, which will prompt you for your administrator password: If you aren’t afraid of controlling your Mac using Terminal commands, it is possible to empty the trash using the following command:Įmptying the trash with Terminal seems faster than using macOS’s graphical user interface. Then you can empty the trash and restart your computer normally. You can temporarily prevent such processes from opening it automatically by rebooting your Mac in safe mode by holding down the Shift key during startup. If that doesn't solve the issue, you might have a startup or login item using the file. In this case it is recommended to restart your Mac and then empty the trash. If that doesn’t work, there might be one or more background processes using the file. To address that, start by quitting all the apps that are using the file you want to erase, and only then hit “Empty Trash”. This happens because a file could still be in use or locked. We have all encountered the situation where emptying the trash simply doesn’t work or gets stuck. Remember, this will only appear for Mac users running macOS 10.10 or earlier, since Apple removed this feature starting with macOS 10.11 El Capitan. To check if this option is active, go to Finder > Preferences > Advanced and untick “Empty Trash Securely”. It’s worth noting that this is something most users won’t need unless it is highly sensitive information. While it is secure and specially designed for hard disk technology, it is a much slower process compared to a regular file removal. This is a built-in macOS feature that overwrites the data that was stored so the files cannot be recovered once deleted. The first thing you might want to check if the trash is slow to empty is whether the “Secure Empty Trash” feature is active. While this process should be seamless, there are situations where clearing the trash becomes very slow or even becomes stuck, and in some cases macOS will display an error message to explain the reason. Just like with a regular trash can, you need to ‘empty’ it for the contents to get removed, so right-click on the Trash icon and select “Empty Trash”. Dragging files onto the Trash icon in the Dock doesn’t remove deleted files from the system.
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