Are you a paranoid Mac user? Do you worry that important files on your Mac could be, uh, retrieved, by others (hackers, friends, or enemies)? As they say, only the paranoid survive. Whether that’s true or not, I won’t judge, but if you’re worried about how to truly delete incriminating files from your Mac, there are at least two easy ways. One is free. One is not. Both work very well.
Delete And Destroy For Free
Mac users should be warned that simply dragging files to the Trash and clicking the Empty Trash button in the Finder doesn’t really remove the files. They’re still on your Mac, out of site, easily retrievable.
Right below the Empty Trash button in the Finder’s Finder menu is the Secure Empty Trash selection. For a smaller number of files that must be deleted and deleted for sure, choose that instead of the not-so-secure Empty Trash button.
Secure Empty Trash writes over the file’s location numerous times, making it very difficult for even experienced hackers to retrieve your incriminating files.
What Me Paranoid?
Assume for a moment what would happen if someone, anyone, somehow managed to dig through your Mac’s trash and come up with enough data to harm your personal or company finances?
What is removing that kind of fear worth?
Fortunately, there’s a Mac app that goes beyond fear and paranoia. Think of Shredit X as a Mac digital file shredder.
It wipes files, frees disk space, overwrites and truly shreds sensitive, valuable data files, and does it on your Mac’s disk drive, external drives, even USB flash storage.
You control the amount of shredding. Shredit X complies with US Department of Defense, National Security Agency, and other electronic shredding standards. Once your data files are shredded, they’re gone.
To Shred Or Not To Shred?
Good question. If you’re simply paranoid about data, the maximum amount of shredding is probably worth the effort. For the rest of us, Shredit X comes with a File Shredder Test.
Using a simple five finger test and a few questions, you can determine whether you need the extra shredding power of Shredit X, or if Apple’s built-in Secure Empty Trash feature is sufficient.
The app is cross platform, Mac or PC, and comes with a true try-before-you-buy option. It’s a good way to delete valuable data from the hard disk drives of computers you’re giving away, selling, or replacing. Is there a negative? Yes. Make sure you want to destroy the data before you click. Once destroyed, it’s really, truly destroyed.