Shred

Updated: February 11, 2024

Shred overwrites the contents of a file to hide data from recovery.

By default it will overwrite 3 times and will not delete. This is because files may be operating on /dev/* and those files should not be removed.

SHRED

shred
    -f, --force         # change permissions to allow writing if necessary
    -n, --iterations=   # choose how many times to iterate
    -u                  # deallocate and delete after overwrite
    --remove=           # OPTIONS: unlink, wipe, wipesync (default)
    -v, --verbose       # show progress
    -z, --zero          # add a final overwrite of zeros to hide shredding
    --help              # list help options
    --version           # see version number

EXAMPLES

shred -uz file