There’s just one last bit of information you need to know to erase the free space on a hard drive from the command line. In Unix, all devices appear as part of the file system tree, and in macOS. The “as space permits” bit is the key here. When less than 20 percent of the space on your Mac’s startup disk is available — or if less than 5 GB of space is available — your Mac will start automatically purging the oldest Time Machine local snapshots to free up space. ShredIt X – Mac OS X; Instructions: How to Erase Free Space. There are three ways to erase free space using ShredIt X. Using Drag and Drop. Drag the Hard Drive icon onto the ShredIt Icon and drop it;. Using the Buttons. Double-click the ShredIt X Icon to start the.
If you’re selling an old Mac, a spare hard drive, or you’re just quite paranoid about your deleted data, you’re either familiar with—or should be familiar with—the Erase Free Space button on the Erase tab in Disk Utility (found in your Applications -> Utilities folder).
When you click this button, you’re presented with three options for securely erasing the free space on your hard drive: write over the free space with zeros (fast and relatively safe), write over the free space three times (more secure, very slow), or write over the free space seven times (extremely slow).
I use this feature whenever I sell an old machine. First I format the drive and install a fresh copy of macOS, then I use Disk Utility to erase the free space (typically the one-time write-with-zeros option). This gives me a good sense of security, as it would take a team of dedicated professionals, and possibly special hardware, to have some chance of recovering any of my deleted data—though I really only care about a few financial files, and those are kept on an encrypted disk image, so they’re probably safe anyway.
Use Terminal to securely erase a drive
What if you want to do this from Terminal instead? In Terminal, a program named diskutil provides most of the features of macOS’s Disk Utility.
(Please note that, as with many Terminal commands, there’s a chance of Really Bad Things happening if you make a mistake with the following instructions. Proceed with caution, and make sure your backups are current before you try any of the following.)
Erase Free Space Mac
To find out about diskutil in detail, type man diskutil at the Terminal prompt. Within the man pages, you’ll find the explanation for how to securely erase a disk’s free space using diskutil:
But how do you figure out what to list for device, which is the disk (or partition) that has the free space you’re trying to securely erase? diskutil can provide that information, too. Just use diskutil list to see a list of all drives and partitions. On the far right, you’ll see an IDENTIFIER column; that column contains the identifier that diskutil needs. Here’s an example of the list output on my machine:
IDG
There’s just one last bit of information you need to know to erase the free space on a drive from the command line. In Unix, all devices appear as part of the file system tree, and in macOS, they’re all listed in the /dev directory. So if I want to use diskutil to erase the free space on my Apple_HFS Untitled volume on my external drive, using the single-pass method, the final command would look like this:
diskutil secureErase freespace 1 /dev/disk2s1
Warning! It’s critically important that you include the freespace portion of that command. If you don’t, diskutil will happily start securely erasing the entire disk, instead of just the free space! Yes, that’s a Really Bad Thing, especially because it will be securely erased, meaning there’s no chance you’ll be able to recover the data.
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The limitations of Mac storage often create a problem that prevents the Mac from running smoothly, which results in inconvenience to every user. With that said, we take a look at the four ways to free up the storage space on the device manually, according to Apple.
How to Free Up Storage Space Manually on Your Mac
1. Store the contents of the device to the iCloud storage.
iCloud is an online storage service that enables Mac users to save their files and other data online. This is a safe and secure place for your files. It will save the files automatically after editing or modifying its contents. Also, a user can always check and access these files online, anywhere and anytime. All Apple users have a free 5 GB storage space in iCloud and can subscribe to more storage through monthly subscription
- To use the iCloud, go to the 'Apple menu'. After, you will see the option 'About this Mac.' Click it.
- Once you see this on the screen, select the 'Storage.'
- Then, click 'Manage.'
- Click the 'Store in iCloud' and it is done.
For documents stored in iCloud, you can always download these documents locally on your Mac anytime. For photos and videos, the iCloud will store full resolution images and videos. It can also save the messages and attachments.
2. Uninstall unused or unnecessary applications in the device.
Sometimes, there are unnecessary applications in the device that occupy spaces in the storage. To free up the storage, users can uninstall these applications.
Erase Free Space Mac High Sierra
Read Also: How to clean up your Mac quickly? Outbyte MacRepair's Guide
This can be done in three easy steps, per Tech Solutions:
- Choose the 'Finder' in the device's dock.
- Then, click 'Go.' After, browse the options, find and click the 'Applications.'
- After clicking it, it will show you all the applications in your Mac. Browse through the applications and choose those applications that are unused and unnecessary. To uninstall each application, drag the application's icon to the Trash icon that you will see in the dock. Continue doing this until you have uninstalled all the unneeded applications.
3. Empty trash
The items in the Trash can also occupy space in the storage. There are two options you can choose from. You can manually empty the Trash once in a while or enable the feature that automatically and permanently delete all the items in the trash every 30 days.
- To delete manually, click the Trash icon in the device's dock. Browse through the items and delete the items that you do not need anymore. You can also select all and empty the Trash.
- To enable the feature that will automatically and permanently delete all the items in the trash every 30 days, follow the instructions in storing in iCloud above mentioned. However, this time, browse and choose the 'Empty Trash Automatically' and click 'Turn On...'.
4. Free up a large storage space on the Mac
You can use an external storage to help maximize the storage of the device. These external storage devices are: USB flash drives, external hard drive, SD or Micro SD card, and external port adapters. There are four steps to move the items from the Mac to an external storage device, per Business Insider.
- Check for an available port on your Mac device and plug the external storage device.
- After plugging it in, it will appear in the finder and the desktop of the device.
- Copy or move the items or files that you do not need currently and are often unused in the Mac.
- Lastly, after copying and moving the items in the external storage, delete all the original documents and other items in the Mac to free up storage.
Related Article: Mac Running Slow? Here Are 4 Tips to Help Improve Its Speed
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