How to Permanently Delete Files From Your Computer Forever

To permanently delete files is to totally erase its existence. When you’ve hit the ‘delete’ button on a file, you want to make sure that it’s gone from your computer forever. However, computers are designed to keep a copy just in case you’ve made a mistake. To ensure that you have deleted files permanently, there is a process that you can follow.

What Happens When You Press ‘Delete’

Hitting ‘delete’ doesn’t do exactly what you think it does. The file moves to either the trash or recycling bin depending on the operating system that you are using. What this does is ensure that the file can no longer be accessed by the file explorer. The reference to the file is no longer there. However, the trash or recycling bin is the first place that people will look when they want to see what files have been deleted. These can be recovered just as quickly as they were deleted, placing them back into the accessibility of the file explorer.

Even after you have emptied the contents of the trash or recycling bin, it is still present on your computer. While you won’t be able to easily access the file that has been deleted, it still remains on your computer. It is still a part of your computer’s file system. Anyone with a file recovery system will be able to find the deleted files, which can be problematic for a number of reasons.

Computers want to protect you. Hitting ‘delete’ on a file is near-instantaneous. It wants to create a fail-safe in the event that you made a mistake. Further, it wants to keep you up and running at all times. Deleting a file is going to take a lot less time than erasing it completely. As such, it keeps the data in place until new data is written over the sector where that data is located. Depending on how much data you save to your computer on a regular basis, it could take months or even years for the data to be overwritten – and this leaves your computer vulnerable to exposing your secrets.

Why Files Need to Be permanently Deleted

Just as computers have reasons for wanting to save data, you have reasons for wanting to permanently delete data. Whether you are wanting to permanently delete files for personal use or within corporate sectors, there may be a number of reasons for wanting to permanently delete certain files with the certainty that they are gone forever.

Here are some of the top reasons why files may need to be permanently deleted:

• Hide your mistakes
• Remove duplicate data
• Erase incriminating photos
• Avoid sensitive information falling into the wrong hands
• Remove all data to sell a hard drive

When you’re in the legal industry, you need to be able to delete client files with confidence knowing that they are gone forever. When you’re in the healthcare sector, you have to follow HIPAA guidelines and ensure that patient records aren’t falling into the wrong hands. You may also need to ensure that industry secrets are removed before you decide to recycle old computers. Even the financial sector has reasons for deleting files.

Regardless of why it is that you want to delete files, you need to be able to do so with confidence knowing that they are actually erased from the computer and/or server.

How Many Programs Leave You Vulnerable

With a quick internet search, you can find a variety of programs that you can download to your computer. They all claim that they will help you to delete programs from your computer. The problem with this is that they can leave you vulnerable to countless malware threats and hackers.

The integrity of many software downloads is questionable. Hackers will often create software for the sole purpose of getting people to download it. Then, once the software is downloaded onto your computer, they have access to your files, your keystrokes, and all sorts of other personal information.

Additionally, there can be various malware threats when you download software. Instead of getting a program that will help you to permanently delete files from your registry, you will inadvertently download a virus to your computer. This can cause data breaches and all sorts of other problems — and it can infect the entire server that you’re using.

Rather than using programs that could affect the integrity of your system, it’s best to use hardware that allows you to delete files with greater confidence.

Shred Cube: A Permanent Solution

Many programs designed to delete data for you keep log files to record actions that have been completed. This would compromise the security of deleting different files. It would show that you deleted a certain number of files, raising flags.

The best IT professionals and hackers use an external device that is plugged into the computer. It ensures that actions can be taken without leaving a trace. Shred Cube mimics these devices, providing you with the kind of flexibility that you desire.

The Shred Cube is a small device that you plug into your computer. It allows you to select documents and files to delete – whether it’s a single file, a group of files or an entire folder of files. Additionally, there is a scan feature to ensure that any and all copies of a specific file are permanently removed from your computer as well.

There are many features of the Shred Cube, including the task that it scrubs unwanted files. It ensures that any data related to the file are removed. There’s no trace of the file left behind, ensuring that it’s even more secure than a paper shredder. Perhaps the best part is that there is no software download involved.