Free software to recover files deleted from trash

MacInWin said:

Randy, Disk Utility will do it, at least in Mojave. When you opt to erase a disk, there is a box labelled "Security Options" where you can opt for how secure the erase should be.

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He did say "unless you set it to do a secure erase," which is what you are describing. But I disagree with him that such a format would necessarily take "a very long time," as there are several security options (as you imply). The single pass of zeros, for example, doesn't take an unreasonable amount of time in my opinion.

MacInWin said:

Randy, Disk Utility will do it, at least in Mojave. When you opt to erase a disk, there is a box labelled "Security Options" where you can opt for how secure the erase should be.

Click to expand...

AFAIK there were always a number of different security options when erasing using Disk Utility.
I just looked at El Capitan - you get is a slider with "fastest" at one end and "most secure" at the other end with two options in-between, so four options total

krs said:

AFAIK there were always a number of different security options when erasing using Disk Utility.
I just looked at El Capitan - you get is a slider with "fastest" at one end and "most secure" at the other end with two options in-between, so four options total

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Yes, there have been for as long as I can remember, although I believe there used to be 1 or 2 additional options that are no longer there. The "fastest" is the default setting which offers no security.

Yes, he did say, "unless you set it to do a secure erase," but I just wanted later readers of this thread to be aware that it CAN be done with Disk Utility. And if you select anything other than the default, the "wipe" will make recovery next-to-impossible.