Posts Tagged ‘permanently delete files windows 10’

How to Securely Delete Files in Windows 10 without Third Party Software

March 18th, 2019 by Admin

When you delete a file, Windows only marks the file as deleted and it continues existing on your hard drive, even after you empty it from Recycle Bin. The deleted files can be recovered using data recovery software until they’re overwritten. In this tutorial we’ll show you how to use Microsoft’s command-line utility to securely delete, shred and wipe your files in Windows 10, so they can’t be recovered.

Part 1: Securely Delete Specific Folders or Files

To get started, download the SDelete utility from Microsoft’s website. After extracting the download file, copy the resulting .exe files to the System32 directory: C:\Windows\System32.

Open the elevated Command Prompt and you can securely and permanently delete any folder or file by running this command:
sdelete.exe -p 3 -s "your_folder_or_file"

By default, SDelete will overwrite the given file only once. You can use the –p option to specify the number of times to overwrite the data.

Part 2: Securely Wipe & Overwrite Free Space on Entire Drive

How can I overwrite the files that have been previously deleted without using the SDelete utility? To securely wipe all files and folders you have already deleted, simple run the following command to overwrite all free space on your drive. Replace D with the drive you want to clean up.
sdelete.exe -c:D

This command will only wipe the free space to prevent recovery of deleted files, and it won’t affect any files on your drive, so it’s safe. There is a similar built-in console tool called cipher.exe which also lets you wipe the free disk space, but it’s much slower than SDelete.
cipher /w:D

Conclusion

Using the SDelete utility you can securely delete files and wipe free space in Windows 10 to prevent any sensitive data from falling into the wrong hands. Despite SDelete does not have a graphical user interface, it is still easy for anyone to use.

How to Delete Files Directly without Sending to Recycle Bin in Windows 10

April 23rd, 2018 by Admin

Recycle Bin is a special directory that is used to store deleted files that are awaiting permanent deletion. By default, when you delete a folder or file, Windows just sends your folder/file into Recycle Bin in the event you need to recover it. To get rid of all your deleted files permanently, you have to empty the Recycle Bin. In this tutorial we’ll show you 2 simple ways to delete files directly without sending to Recycle Bin in Windows 10.

Method 1: Use Keyboard Shortcut to Delete Files without Sending to Recycle Bin

Just open Windows Explorer and select those folders/files that you want to delete, then press Shift + Delete keyboard combination. Your selected folders/files will be permanently deleted without going to Recycle Bin.

Method 2: Bypass Recycle Bin When Deleting Files in Windows 10

  1. Right-click on the Recycle Bin icon on the desktop, and select Properties from the context menu.

  2. Select the drive for which you want to modify the Recycle Bin properties, and check the option “Don’t move files to the Recycle Bin. Remove files immediately when deleted“.

    Make sure you also check the box “Display delete confirmation dialog“, so you’ll get a confirmation message even if you delete something accidentally.

  3. Repeat the above step for other drives for which you don’t want deleted files to go to the Recycle Bin. Note: if you just go through the above step for the drive C:\ only, the files deleted from D:\ will still be moved to Recycle Bin.
  4. That’s it. Now whenever you delete a file from any drive in Windows 10, the file will not go to Recycle Bin but immediately deleted permanently.