Are you selling your old Mac to get a new one, and need to ensure that your old Mac’s deleted files are unrecoverable? If so, we will be showing you how to completely remove deleted files. When you delete files on your Mac, they aren’t really deleted, as only the references to those files are deleted.
The data remains until another file writes over it. If you want to permanently erase this data, you can do this easily via Disk Utility. Before we start, please empty your “Trash”.
Completely Removing Data
1. Open “Disk Utility” by launching it from your dock or by searching for it in Spotlight.
2. Once you are in Disk Utility, look at the lefthand side of the window. You will notice a sidebar that has all of the disks that are connected to your Mac. Click on your main hard drive which should be the drive at the top.
3. Once you have selected your drive, click on the “Erase”tab located in the middle of the window. You will notice a few different options. Click on the “Erase Free Space” option. When you click on this, all of the data that you have “erased” in the past will be written over with random data. This makes sure that all of your deleted data is unrecoverable.
4. Note that when you click on “Erase Free Space” you will be greeted with a few options. Each option is a different level of security, choose the level of security that fits you best.
Thanks for reading today’s tutorial, check back for more Mac tips daily!
