The manual page entry on diskutil offers the following details on the secure erase feature, detailing the level of writing over free space.Įrase, using a secure method, either a whole-disk (includingĪny and all partitions), or, only the free space (not in useįor files) on a currently-mounted volume.
This is irreversible, so as we’ve mentioned a dozen times already, be sure the syntax is exact. Hitting return will instantly begin the secure erase of any free space. If the drive in question has a space in the name, you should place it in quotes or escape it with backslashes.įor example, to perform a secure erase with 35 passes on free space on a drive named “Macintosh HD” you could use the following command string:ĭiskutil secureErase freespace 3 "/Volumes/Macintosh HD" If you aren’t sure of the name of the drive, using diskutil list will show you all mounted drives and partitions. Users can also choose the disk identifier if desired.
(level 0-4) is a number indicating the number of passes to write to the free space, ‘freespace’ indicates you are erasing only the free space and not the entire drive itself – a critically important difference – and (Drive Name) is self explanatory. To get started, launch the Terminal (found in /Applications/Utilities/) and use the following general syntax, replacing level and drive name as appropriate:ĭiskutil secureErase freespace (level 0-4) /Volumes/(Drive Name) You have been warned, so backup your Mac data first, then proceed at your own risk. The command line requires precise syntax and is unforgiving, improper commands could lead to the unintended removal of data you do not want to delete, permanently, as this is a secure erase function. How to Secure Erase Free Space on Mac OS X El Capitan Drives via Command Line, Without Disk Utilityīack up your Mac before attempting to use these commands. To be perfectly clear, this secure erases only the free space on a drive, aimed at preventing file recovery efforts, it does not perform a secure erase of the entire hard drive as described here. This is for advanced Mac users only who are comfortable with backing up their Mac, using the command line with exact syntax, and the concepts behind permanently removing data. And yes, this works to erase free space on older versions of Mac OS X too, but since they can do the same task with Disk Utility it’s perhaps a bit less relevant to the prior releases. To achieve the same secure erase in modern versions of Mac OS X you’ll need to turn to the command line. But not everyone has an SSD drive, and thus some users may still wish to perform a secure erase of free space on their Mac hard disk. For those wondering, these features were removed from the modern version of Disk Utility in Mac OS X because they do not work on SSD volumes, which are becoming more commonplace and nearly all Mac laptops ship with them by default now.
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