Within Finder there were two "Empty Trash" options available in prior versions. Regular that simply removed the directory reference and Secure that overwrote the disk area. Was Secure removed from OS 10.11 or relocated?
MacBook Pro (15-inch Early 2011), Other OS, OS 10.11
Secure Empty Trash = sudo srm -rf ~/.Trash/*
this will do what is desired if and only if you have a rotational hard disk. If you have an SSD, it will not really erase the storage, and will increase the SSD wear needlessly.
If you have an SSD and are concerned about the security of your deleted files, then use FileVault to encrypt your storage. Then when a file is deleted it is just a bunch of random bits
Indeed, I cannot locate such an option anymore.
If you miss that one that much, use Terminal instead, using srm command:
Secure Empty Trash = sudo srm -rf ~/.Trash/*
Thank you! So I wasn't going blind, nor did I see it mentioned (might have missed the comment) in the release notes.
Thank you. I do have an older (early 2011) with a rotational drive and not SSD. But that is good information.
Beyond the obvious, Apple has deliberately removed Secure Empty Trash from El Capitan. This was mentioned by them in a recent Security update, because the secure part of that empty wasn't working as expected. The pointers to srm (1) are the alternative. If one omits the simple (-s), or medium (-m) flags, it will by default perform a 35-pass Gutmann Algorithm on your requested files.
DeaninSWFL wrote:
Thank you. I do have an older (early 2011) with a rotational drive and not SSD. But that is good information.
Hard disk drive data will not always be reliably removed, either.
Disk sectors that were replaced due to errors can still contain readable data.
Encrypt your disk.
secure empty removed from OS 10.11?
