OS X El Capitan: Empty the trash safely
If you want to empty the trash safely under Mac OS X El Capitan, this is unfortunately no longer possible. We will tell you why this is the case and what alternatives there are.
Empty the trash safely on Mac OS X El Capitan
- With OS X 10.11 El Capitan, the "Empty trash safely" function was deleted. This allowed files in the recycle bin to be deleted irrevocably, so that programs for data recovery no longer had a chance.
- The reason for this is not only that the function often simply did not work, but also the compatibility with new hard drives in Mac and MacBook. It is much more difficult to safely remove data from SSD hard drives.
- On the older and slower HDD hard drives, the data is "securely deleted" by overwriting the storage location several times. The new SSD hard drives work differently, so that overwriting the data does not necessarily make recovery impossible.
Mac OS X El Capitan: Safely delete files
If you use an HDD hard drive in your Mac or MacBook, you can still delete your data with the following instructions. Deleting is never really safe on SSD hard drives, here you should encrypt your hard drive.
- First start the terminal under Mac OS X El Capitan.
- Enter the command "srm -f / ABC" and confirm it with the [Enter] key.
- Replace the "ABC" placeholder with the file path of the file to be deleted.
- If you want to delete an entire folder, use the command "srm -rf / ABC".
- The file to be deleted is then overwritten 35 times. The file is securely deleted.
- Tip: If you simply drag the file into the terminal window after the command, the path is entered automatically.