Does Using Secure Empty Trash Put Stress on My Hard Drive?

Whenever I empty my trash I use Secure Empty Trash even if it's not for sensitive files. Are there any benefits to using this feature - does it free up better hard drive space for new files to be saved to than just Empty Trash? And does it put a lot of stress on my hard drive as it works harder emptying trash this way? I'm using an early 2008 15" MacBook Pro with Leopard 10.5.8 but will soon be upgrading to Snow Leopard.

If you are secure deleting very large blocks of files, as you've already seen, sure it does put more stress on the system - takes much longer, has the HD doing a lot of writes to disk, produces more heat, ramps up the fans, etc.
To what extent that ultimately makes in the lifespan of the drive is hard to say - depend how often you use secure delete, and on how much data at a time. Secure deleting a handful of personal files at a time seems pretty trivial to me, but routinely secure deleting thousands of files taking up Gb's of disk space may cause a drive to fail earlier than it otherwise might.
Basically, I only use it when I am deleting personal data files that I specifically want to be unrecoverable (eg. I have a copy of my will on my MBP, whenever I have made changes in my will, I have secure deleted the old version as I do not want it to be recoverable, same thing for old tax records outside the statute of limitations for the IRS to poke back into).

Similar Messages

How do I override "error code -61" when attempting to put things in the Trash? Cannot empty Trash or use Secure Empty Trash.

How do I override "error code -61" when attempting to put items in the Trash? Cannot empty Trash or use Secure Empty Trash. I have a MacBook OS X 10.5.8

The reason why some of the files are blocking the trash from emptying is because of specific ".app" files from third party companies like Adobe products. Not the user files or the various help documents but instead the actual mother program. Here's how to fix this problem:
1) remove from the trash all the actual software programs like Photoshop, InDesign, DreamWeaver and so on and put them on the desktop.
2) Command "I" (info) and when the dialog box opens go to the "Name & Extension" text box and remove the ".app" from the software name. Example: Photoshop.app change to Photoshop.
3) the program icon will change to a "folder icon".
4) put the folder icon back into the trash and you should be able to now empty the trash.
If you continue to get the error code 8003 it's because you may still have one or more software programs in the trash that needs to go through this process. Remember - it's not the user files or help documents or supporting files that is causing this but instead the "actual product programs".
JKai

Are there any advantages of using Secure Empty Trash over regular Empty Trash?

Are there any advantages of using Secure Empty Trash over regular Empty Trash?

If you are going to run around with sensitive files on your file system, you might be better off using a whole disk encryption so that every file is encrypted, any deleted file contains encrypted contents. As long a no one can access your files using your encrytpion keys, all your data is secure.
Also secure delete is not really going to do much on a Solid State Drive, and again whole disk encryption would be a better choice.
For a moderate amount of data, secure erase does not take too much time. But if you have a ton of file and/or a few really large files to erase, secure erase can take a long time to complete as it is doing multiple pass to write and overwrite the file's storage with patterns of data that make it extremely difficult to recover the original data. That takes time.
Finally, if you have been updating a document, previous editions may have been given over to free storage as new versions are written, such that when you decide to erase the file you may only be doing secure erase on the most recent copy.

Does Secure Empty Trash Accomplish the same task as Running disk util to wipe free space

Does using the secure empty trash option accomplish the same task as running disk util to eliminate free space from old deleted files? I'm currently running the 7 pass deal on my late '12 iMac. Says its gonna take 7 hrs. Can I use safari or iTunes while the Big Mac works its magic?

Does using the secure empty trash option accomplish the same task as
running disk util to eliminate free space from old deleted files?
No.
Finder > Empty Trash just tells the file system that those areas on the drive are now available for overwriting with new data. Data deleted off hard drives can be recovered if this method is used before it's overwritten with new data with special software.
Finder > Secure Empty Trash runs a 7x pass military approved overwrite only on the deleted files in the Trash, works for hard drives only.
Disk Utility > Erase Free Space creates a huge file that takes the remaining free space on the volume selected and either writes zeros or 7x pass, then confirms it and then removes the file. Takes a long time to complete, do not interrupt.
This can be used if one forgets to use Secure Empty Trash or wants to scrub caches or other files that don't necessarily go to the Trash for user deletion, such as program files that self delete and download cache files etc.
Only works for hard drives and there is no recovery possible for nearly all users. Those with special expensive magnetic equipment can possibly recover data off a zero pass, but not off a 7x overwrite.
The zero erase free space can be also be used to pre-eliminate potential unknown bad sectors on hard drives before wanted data is written to them, thus preventing future issues with data retention on hard drives.
Disk Utility > Erase - (not moving the slider) will erase all data on the volume or partition selected, including wanted data. It just tells the file system the deleted data is ready for overwriting. Thus can be recovered using special software before it's overwritten on hard drives only.
Disk Utility > Erase w/Security Option - (or moving the slider from the left) will secure erase all data on the volume or partition selected, including wanted data.
It can vary on the operating system version used from zero pass, to 3x overwrite, to 7x overwrite to 35x overwrite (old version for days past of smaller drives, don't use on newer larger drives as it will take weeks to finish.)
Secure erase methods are used to secure erase private data off of hard drives only, doesn't work for SSDs.
For secure data deletion off a SSD or any flash media, it's NSA advised to grind it into a fine powder.
How do I securely delete data from the machine?

Why does SECURE EMPTY TRASH take so long (several days)?

I am using OS 10.3.9. I didn't empty the trash for quite a while, and several days ago clicked SECURE EMPTY TRASH. The emptying process began but has not finished even now! Does it take THAT much longer when one uses SECURE EMPTY TRASH? I see that the little message window for Trash says:
Item to delete: 114,158 This number hasn't gone down now for several minutes.
Several times I have stopped the Empty Trash process to shut the computer down or just because I wanted to stop it, but it seem to me that after "Emptying the Trash" has been going on for so long, it ought to be finished by now. I welcome any sunlight you can shed on this. Thank you.
— Lorna in Southern California

When you choose to Secure Empty Trash, the system
must overwrite the area where those items area a
minimum of 7 times for it to be considered secure.
When you have that many files in the Trash, this can
take quite some time.
So, unless you have something that is confidential in
the Trash, your best option is to Empty Trash
normally.
Mulder
If my answer helped solve your problem, please
consider awarding some points. Why
Reward Points?
OK, and thank you. You have answered my question; I now won't be worrying that something is awfy. The Secure Empty Trash is still emptying and it is down to about 77,000 items. I have clicked the YES, MY QUESTION HAS BEEN ANSWERED button and I appreciate your reassurance.
— Lorna in Southern California

"Secure Empty Trash" Didn't Clear Space on HD

How can I reallly clear the space formerly occupied by BackUp files?
When I used "Secure Empty Trash" after putting lots of BackUp files in the Trash, there was no change in the amount of available HD space. I have about 10GB of applications and files on a 60GB HD, so there should be about 45 GB of free space, but there's only 4 GB available.
FWIW, I've Repaired Permissions (only a few were necessary) and Restarted to no avail. I've used "Secure Empty Trash" to remove another file, and it worked just fine!
So how can I clear the part of my HD that I asssume is written with random 0s and 1s left by "Secure Empty Trash", not real files?

John:
Thanks for hanging in there with me! As you knew it would, WhatSize worked.
It identified the old Backup files (that the Finder didn't) and transferred them to the Trash. I used Secure Empty Trash delete them. This time it worked correctly and I have space for Backups again, thank-you very much!
If you have any idea why it didn't work the first time, I'd appreciate knowing it. I've never used it before, so I don't know if it has a repuitation for being buggy or otherwise problematic.
The name "WhatSize" was a little misleading.... I initially thought it would just do what the Finder's View > Show View Options > Calculate all sizes command does. Some of the comments on the Version Tracker site supported that idea, so as the stubborn Dutchman that I am was reluctant to do something that might make matters worse.
I also never considered the possibility that using Secure Empty Trash (as I had) would convert files into hidden files..... especially since I've never had such an experience in uising standard Empty Trash in 25+ years of Apple II and Mac use.
As you expected, I have learned that lots of HD space is devoted to hidden files (that once were visible in the "old days", if I'm not mistaken).
In any case, I very much appreciate your wisdom and willingness to keep replying when I didn't take your suggestion! Thanks!
Cheers!!
Dick

Secure Empty Trash & Trash Cache

Am old Mac addict home user with Apple from day one but not a guru. Still have Apple IIE that runs like a clock. With 17 Macs in between, years ago when G3 would slow down, get sluggish and tired, I discovered that setting trash cache and deleting many thousands of cached files would invigorate the machine and restore it's original speed using Preferences in TechTool Pro V 3.
Currently have TTP V4 in both G5 Pro Mac OS 10.5.6 and G5 Power Mac OS 10.4.11. Cleaning out old manuals got rid of TTP V2 and V3 manuals. Still have CDs but unfortunately no serial numbers. So, unable to open those programs. Micromat archives couldn't help. Also, unable to use TTP V4 preferences to set trash cache as there's no Preferences capability. Apparently it can be assumed there's no trash cache in current versions of TTP.
Queried Micromat about trash cache who said to "Go into "System Preferences" --> "TechTool Protection". In the "Volume Usage" tab, you can set how many days you want TechTool Pro to save the "Trash History"." No joy as I couldn't figure out what that meant about "System Preferences" or how to do what they recommended.
No problem as both G5s are operating fine. But, I'm curious.
I use "Secure Empty Trash" exclusively shutting down my G5s. My questions: Does that shut down feature remove all data from the HD thereby eliminating the need for a trash cache? If there's still a trash cache, is there any way to set it? Thank you and regards. Ol' Jim.

Did you get a response to this? There is no solution listed, but it’s marked Solved.
I think you are right that there is no longer a Trash Cache. I did a search and it came up with two files called Trash Cache, both were dated 2002, obviously many systems ago which probably came over with Migration Assistant from previous computers.
The TechTool Protection is new with TTP 5. You won’t see it in System Preferences with TTP 4. That’s probably why you couldn’t figure out what they meant.
Secure Empty Trash writes over those files which makes them nearly impossible to recover, so I don’t think you need to worry about them.

Secure Empty Trash seems to repeat itself

If I use "Secure Empty Trash..." I may (for example) see that 8 files are being deleted and the Trash is now empty. If I then delete 1 file and repeat the aforementioned process I see that once again 8 files are being deleted. Why would this happen? Thanks.

Hi,
That doesn't explain some of my own findings - the numbers don't add up. In my system, if only the startup disk is mounted and a single file is placed in the Trash, a secure-delete progress window will show four items being deleted.
Just mounting an additional external volume will add two items to the apparent number of items being secure-deleted for each such volume added, even though no files on the additional volumes are placed in the Trash to begin with.
Here are the tests I did.
Start with a text file that is on the DeskTop.
For each test:
1) duplicate the text file
2) move the duplicate copy to the Trash
3) secure-empty the Trash,
4) repeat step 1
5) repeat step 2
6) repeat step 3
Steps 1-3 were done to be sure the Trash folders were truly empty before performing the actual test in steps 4-6.
To be determined:
In step 6, after that single file has been placed in the startup volume's Trash, how many items does the secure-delete progress window show as being deleted?
Results:
In my system, if the test is run with no disk volumes other than the startup disk mounted, the secure-delete progress window shows four items being deleted.
If I run the test after first mounting a single external volume, then the secure-delete progress window shows six items being deleted. Again, just one file was in the Trash after step 5, the same as for the first test.
If I mount a second external volume and repeat the test, again with only a single file in the Trash after step 5, the secure-delete progress window now shows 8 items being deleted.
If I first mount all 15 of my external partitions and run the same test, again with a single file in the Trash after step 5, the secure-delete progress window shows 34 items being deleted!

Time for Secure Empty Trash and Free Disk Space

Hi Forum,
Can anyone give me a guesstimate of how long secure empty trash would take or can take? I have 290 items and its been there for about an hour.
Also, if I choose to free disk space, how long approximately would this take? Is it worth doing this? I have 40gb "free" now.
Thanks.
S

it's not necessarily the number of files, but more the total size of all the files combined. But lets just say it dose take a while to do. you really only need to use secure empty trash on files of a sensitive nature. Such as financial information (credit card numbers, back information, social security numbers)
Also by spending all that time writing to the hard drive, over and over. Witch is what secure empty trash dose. your reducing the life span of your hard drive. Like car tires your hard drive is only good for so many miles.
I ones secure emptied trash on a GB worth of data. I remember it takings hours. I ones tried scrubbing a whole hard drive, after two days I stopped it because I didn't realize it was going to take so long. That being said it doesn't take too long to scrub a few files that are a few MB in size.

Secure empty trash.

I am trying to use 'secure empty trash' but it gets so far and then stops of its own accord. Any suggestions?

Information.
Trash Can’t Empty – Big Files
Trash – Can’t Empty or Move File To Trash
Trash FAQ
Trash – Empty When File is Locked or in Use

Secure Empty Trash reports wrong number of files

Something that's been bugging me since even before OS 10.6: when I use Secure Empty Trash, the progress box always shows exactly 9 more files to be deleted than there are in the Trash (but counts down to 0 normally). Any idea what's up with that? All I can come up with is (a) it's intentional, and 9 fake files are created and then overwritten, as some sort of additional security (in which case, why 9?), or (b) there are 9 files in a .Trashes directory somewhere which cannot be deleted due to some extended attribute (in which case why no error message or notification?).
Has anyone seen this? Ideas?

In addition to your Home/Trash folder, there is a hidden .Trash folder at the top level of your hard drive, and also hidden .Trashes folders on each of your external drives, each containing a subfolder for every user account on your Mac. Even if they are all empty, the hidden folders themselves are all deleted when you Secure Empty, which accounts for the increased number of items that are being reported.

Secure Empty Trash not 100% safe

Recently I use finder to enter directly into Firefox's cache files and move all the files into the Trash. Next I use Secure Empty Trash.
After that, I used Data Rescue II to see what i can find.
I am very surprised to find most of the images that i have securely deleted.
I know the best way is to use Disk Utility's erase free space function, but if Secure Empty Trash is going to write the data 35 times over, and still can't get the job done.
Then using Erase free space's 35 times write-over isn't completely safe too?

Normally when a file is deleted insecurely, the data isn't deleted at all - the only thing that is removed is the reference to the data in the file catalogue. Overwriting a file even once (let alone 35 times) should prevent recovery by programmes like the one you mentioned that are designed to detect unlinked files and create new catalogue entries for them. Given the above, a few possibilities come to mind that could account for your observations.
One is that the files you recovered were not the ones you thought you deleted. For example, working with "TextEdit.app", any time a previously saved document is modified, an invisible "autosave" copy is created on the hard drive, intended to preserve any modifications in case the programme or computer crashes. This copy is removed insecurely once the changes are manually saved. If the original is then securely erased, it will be unrecoverable. However, data recovery programmes can easily recover the remnants of the multiple intermediate "autosave" files. I have no idea how "FireFox" works with cache files, but perhaps what you recovered was remnants from previous times you visited the sites that were cached in the files you securely deleted.
A second, less likely possibility is that your files were recoverable due to a design flaw introduced in Leopard's version of "Secure Empty Trash" (I haven't tested recently so I don't know if the issue has since been addressed). It is possible to configure it so that files are not securely deleted, even when selecting the option. However, such a configuration would not be a random occurrence - basically, a user would have to set it themselves, although malware or a malicious person with access to your account could do the same...
A third possibility, perhaps related to the second, is that in Leopard, regardless of whether the over-writing stage of "secure empty trash" succeeds or fails for any reason, the process will still continue to the unlinking stage, in effect deleting insecurely. Prior to Leopard, if over-writing failed, the file would not be unlinked, which had at least two benefits: i) since the file was never insecurely deleted, it would not be necessary to initiate a time consuming "erase free space" procedure to ensure that the data was destroyed; and ii) the very presence of the file serves as feedback to the user that the procedure has failed, unlike in Leopard where it fails silently.
Either way, using "erase free space" shouldn't be affected by these issues. If the file has been deleted (i.e. copies do not still exist in a hidden cache file somewhere), then overwriting "free space" should prevent basic recovery software from restoring it, assuming the procedure is allowed to run to completion.

Secure Empty Trash doesn't work

Working in Mavericks on an iMac 27. Secure Empty Trash starts but disappears and nothing is deleted. Is it safe to use Erase Free Space in Disk Utility?

danimal303 wrote:
So it won't help me at all. I don't quite see any use for it, a good reason not to use it. But I have some 560 000 files in Trash and they won't budge.
When you delete a file (without Secure Empty Trash), all the data of the file still exists on the file system free list. It will remain there until the file system reuses the space. Erase Free Space is a way to address this, after files have been deleted.
It is only really useful as a once in a while event, such as someone forgot to use Secure Empty Trash for a file with sensitive data. And Secure Empty Trash is very time consuming, and worse it is if you have an SSD, this wears out the SSD faster.
A better approach is to use FileVault so that a deleted file is instantly securely deleted because it was always encrypted.
Since you are attempting to use Secure Empty Trash, then I would try this from the command line using the 'srm' command. "man srm"
srm -f -r -v ~/.Trash/*
The srm command will perform a secure erase. The -f will keep it from prompting for approval. The -r will recurse through and directories of files in the trash. The -v will display the progress while deleting so you can see how things are going, and have an idea of how much progress you are making.
Be very careful with srm, as if you point it at the wrong directory it could delete something you care about, or a lot of somethings.
If there are files that srm -f will not delete, then you bring out the sudo command. But be VERY CAREFUL with sudo, as you can delete a lot more than just a few files you care about.
sudo srm -f -r -v ~/.Trash/*
Password: you enter your account's password here, assuming you are the admin of the Mac.

What exactly does "Secure Empty Trash" do?

There's very little technical detail on the web about this. I'd like to understand exactly what secure empty trash does.
What method does it use to overwrite?
How does it deal with temp files?
Why does it take so long?
Why, when there's only one file in the trash, does it always claim it's erasing 9 files?
What other files is it erasing in addition to the visible trash contents?
Can it work across network connections and external drives?
Has the method changed in Leopard?
etc.. etc..
Feel free to get all technical, if you know the answers!
Thanks!

What method does it use to overwrite?
It writes over the files with 0's.
How does it deal with temp files?
Not sure what you mean. It treats any file in the trash the same. Could you elaborate?
Why does it take so long?
Because it has to first write over the item with 0's, then delete the item.
Why, when there's only one file in the trash, does it always claim it's erasing 9 files?
What other files is it erasing in addition to the visible trash contents?
It's a bug.
Can it work across network connections and external drives?
Yes.
Has the method changed in Leopard?
Not that I know of.

Does secure empty trash save disk space?

Secure empty trash takes so much longer than just emptying the trash. Is secure empty trash just used to prevent files from being recovered, or does it actually save disk space on the iMac?

I am aware that everyone said that it doesn't save any disk space, because I read through the thread.
HOWEVER.
I had gotten down to 500 mb of disk space and was going crazy trying to delete photos and movies.
Finally I read about the secure delete, tried it. It took 24 hours, and then i hat 36 free gigabites.
THIRTY SIX GIGS OF MEMORY THAT I DIDNT HAVE BEFORE.
Only thing is I have no idea why, because everyone else says that it doesnt clear space.

Does Using Secure Empty Trash Put Stress on My Hard Drive?

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