Do you have an older Mac with a regular HDD? Learn how to make sure deleted files cannot be recovered by securely wiping the free space on the drive.

When you delete files on a regular hard drive on your Mac (not an SSD), the files remain on the drive. But they’re no longer accessible by your Mac.

Question: Q: Microsoft Access for Mac. Hey there, i am studying the functions of microsoft access and just found out that it is not available on mac. Is there a way to get microsoft access on mac or something really similar and having similar functions and controls.

However, anyone who gets a hold of your Mac, and who has intermediate computer skills, might be able to recover deleted files from your drive. Unless you delete them securely first.

If you didn’t already securely delete your files, it’s not too late. If you have a regular spinning hard drive (HDD) in your Mac, you can securely wipe the free space on your Mac, preventing recovery of any files that were not securely deleted. If your Mac has an SSD, you do not need to securely wipe the free space and you shouldn’t.

Today we’ll discuss what happened to the Secure Erase Free Space feature in Disk Utility on your Mac and how to securely wipe the free space on your Mac’s HDD without that feature.

What Happened to Secure Erase Free Space in macOS?

The Secure Erase Free Space feature in Disk Utility on your Mac added a layer of privacy and security to file deletion. The feature allowed you to overwrite the free space on a drive to prevent deleted files from being recovered.

Modern versions of macOS, and later versions of OS X, like El Capitan, don’t include the Secure Erase Free Space feature in Disk Utility. Because most Macs now come with Solid State Drives (SSDs) instead of regular hard disks, Apple feels there is no need for the feature. When you erase files normally on an SSD, it’s difficult to recover that data.

Apple explained that you don’t need to securely erase your Mac’s SSD in their online knowledgebase:

With an SSD drive, Secure Erase and Erasing Free Space are not available in Disk Utility. These options are not needed for an SSD drive because a standard erase makes it difficult to recover data from an SSD.

Use FileVault to Keep Your Data Safe

Whether you have an SSD or an HDD, you should use FileVault to protect your data. FileVault encrypts your whole drive so all your files are protected. You need a password to access anything on the drive. Without it, your data remains encrypted and safe from unauthorized access

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Securely Wipe the Free Space on Your Mac Using the Command Line

Before wiping the free space on your Mac using the command line, back up your data.

Once you’ve backed up your data, open the Terminal app from the Applications > Utilities folder.

Then, type the following command at the prompt and press Enter.

Make sure you include “freespace” in the command. This indicates you are only erasing the free space on the drive and not the entire drive.

The number “4” indicates the wipe level performed on the drive’s free space. You can use “4” for the wipe level, or select a different option from the following list:

• 0 – Single-pass zero-fill erase.
• 1 – Single-pass random-fill erase.
• 2 – US DoD 7-pass secure erase.
• 3 – Gutmann algorithm 35-pass secure erase.
• 4 – US DoE algorithm 3-pass secure erase.

The more passes you do when wiping the free space, the longer the process takes.

Replace “Macintosh HD” with the name of the volume you want to wipe the free space on. If the name of the volume contains a space, type a backslash in front of the space, like we did in our command. Make sure you include “/Volumes/” before the name of the volume.

When the wiping process finishes, you’ll see a message and you’re returned to the command prompt.

Securely Wipe the Free Space on Your Mac Using CCleaner

CCleaner for Mac has fewer tools available than CCleaner for Windows. But you can use it to securely wipe the free space on an HDD using the free version of CCleaner. You can pay for the Pro version, but it’s not necessary.

Download and install CCleaner. When you open the program, click Tools on the left pane. Then, click Erase Free Space in the middle pane.

Select a volume you want to erase the free space on. If you select an SSD, a message displays in the Details box saying Erase Free Space is not available for SSDs.

Once you select a regular HDD, choose one of the following options from the Security drop-down list.

• Zero Out
• 7-Pass Erase
• 35-Pass Erase

Then, click Erase Free Space.

CCleaner warns you that the process may take several hours to complete.

To start erasing the free space on the selected drive, click Yes. If you’ve changed your mind, click No.

If you clicked Yes, enter your password if prompted.

The wiping process begins and the progress displays in the Details box.

Prevent Private Data from Being Recovered

Apple devices, including Macs, are known for lasting a long time. So, if you still have an older Mac with a regular HDD, use one of these methods to ensure your sensitive deleted files can’t be recovered.

If you also use a Windows PC, here are a few ways you can securely wipe free space in Windows.

Do you know of any other methods or tools for securely wiping free space on a Mac or other secure data removal options for modern versions of the Mac operating system? Share your thoughts and ideas with us in the comments below!

Using Bioconductor

The current release of Bioconductor is version3.11; it works with R version4.0.0. Users of older R andBioconductor must update their installation to take advantageof new features and to access packages that have been added toBioconductor since the last release.

The development version of Bioconductor is version3.12; it works with R version4.0.0. More recent ‘devel’versions of R (if available) will be supported during the nextBioconductor release cycle.

Install the latest release of R, then get the latest version ofBioconductor by starting R and entering the commands

It may be possible to change the Bioconductor version of an existinginstallation; see the ‘Changing version’ section of the BiocManagervignette.

Details, including instructions toinstall additional packages and toupdate,find, andtroubleshoot are providedbelow. A devel version ofBioconductor is available. There are goodreasons for using BiocManager::install() formanaging Bioconductor resources.

Install R

1. Download the most recent version of R. The R FAQs and the RInstallation and Administration Manual contain detailed instructionsfor installing R on various platforms (Linux, OS X, and Windows beingthe main ones).

1. Start the R program; on Windows and OS X, this will usually meandouble-clicking on the R application, on UNIX-like systems, type“R” at a shell prompt.

2. As a first step with R, start the R help browser by typinghelp.start() in the R command window. For help on anyfunction, e.g. the “mean” function, type ? mean.

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Install Bioconductor Packages

To install core packages, type the following in an R command window:

Install specific packages, e.g., “GenomicFeatures” and “AnnotationDbi”, with

The install() function (in the BiocManager package) has arguments that changeits default behavior; type ?install for further help.

For a more detailed explanation on using BiocManager and its advanced usage,such as version switching, please refer to theBiocManager vignette.

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Find Bioconductor Packages

Visit the software package listto discover available packages.

To search through available packages programmatically, use the following:

For example, using a “^org” search pattern will show all of the availableorganism annotation packages.

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Update Installed Bioconductor Packages

Bioconductor packages, especially those in the development branch, areupdated fairly regularly. To identify packages requiring update withinyour version of Bioconductor, start a new session of R and enter

Use the argument ask=FALSE to update old packages without beingprompted. Read the help page for ?install for additional details.

Upgrading installed Bioconductor packages

Some versions of R support more than one version of Bioconductor. Touse the latest version of Bioconductor for your version of R, enter

Remember that more recent versions of Bioconductor may be available if yourversion of R is out-of-date.

For more details on Bioconductor approaches to versioning, seethe advanced sectionin the vignette and version numbering in the developer reference section.

Recompiling installed Bioconductor packages

Rarely, underlying changes in the operating system require ALLinstalled packages to be recompiled for source (C or Fortran)compatibility. One way to address this might be to start a new Rsession and enter

As this will reinstall all currently installed packages, it likelyinvolves a significant amount of network bandwidth and compilationtime. All packages are implicitly updated, and the cumulative effectmight introduce wrinkles that disrupt your work flow. It also requiresthat you have the necessary compilers installed.

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Troubleshoot Package Installations

Use the commands

to flag packages that are either out-of-date or too new for yourversion of Bioconductor. The output suggests ways to solve identifiedproblems, and the help page ?valid lists arguments influencingthe behavior of the function.

Troubleshoot BiocManager

One likely reason for BiocManager not working on your system couldbe that your version of R is too old for BiocManager. In orderavoid this issue, please ensure that you have the latest version of Rinstalled in your system. BiocManager supports R versions from 3.5.0and above.

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Why use BiocManager::install()?

BiocManager::install() is the recommended way to install Bioconductorpackages. There are several reasons for preferring this to the‘standard’ way in which R pacakges are installed viainstall.packages().

Bioconductor has a repository and release schedule that differs from R(Bioconductor has a ‘devel’ branch to which new packages and updatesare introduced, and a stable ‘release’ branch emitted once every 6months to which bug fixes but not new features are introduced).

A consequence of the mismatch between R and Bioconductor releaseschedules is that the Bioconductor version identified byinstall.packages() is sometimes not the most recent ‘release’available. For instance, an R minor version may be introduced somemonths before the next Bioc release. After the Bioc release the usersof the R minor version will be pointed to an out-of-date version ofBioconductor.

A consequence of the distinct ‘devel’ branch is thatinstall.packages() sometimes points only to the ‘release’repository, whereas Bioconductor developers and users wantingleading-edge features wish to access the Bioconductor ‘devel’repository. For instance, the Bioconductor 3.0 release is availablefor R.3.1.x, so Bioconductor developers and leading-edge users need tobe able to install the devel version of Bioconductor packages into thesame version (though perhaps different instance or at least librarylocation) of R that supports version 2.14 of Bioconductor.

An indirect consequence of Bioconductor’s structured release is thatpackages generally have more extensive dependencies with one another,both explicitly via the usual package mechanisms and implicitlybecause the repository, release structure, and Bioconductor communityinteractions favor re-use of data representations and analysisconcepts across packages. There is thus a higher premium on knowingthat packages are from the same release, and that all packages arecurrent within the release.

The BiocManager package serves as the primary way to ensure thatthe appropriate Bioconductor installation is used with respectto the version of R in use regardless of the R and Bioconductorrelease cycles.

The install() function is provided by BiocManager. This is awrapper around install.packages, but with the repository chosenaccording to the version of Bioconductor in use, rather than to theversion relevant at the time of the release of R.

install() also nudges users to remain current within a release, bydefault checking for out-of-date packages and asking if the user wouldlike to update

The BiocManager package provides facilities for switching to the‘devel’ version of Bioconductor

(at some points in the R / Bioconductor release cycle use of ‘devel’requires use of a different version of R itself, in which case theattempt to install devel fails with an appropriate message).

The BiocManager package also provides valid() to test that theinstalled packages are not a hodgepodge from different Bioconductorreleases (the ‘too new’ packages have been installed from sourcerather than a repository; regular users would seldom have these).

For users who spend a lot of time in Bioconductor, the featuresoutlined above become increasingly important and install() is muchpreferred to install.packages().

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Pre-configured Bioconductor

Bioconductor is also available as a set ofAmazon Machine Images (AMIs) andDocker images.

Legacy and Older R Versions

It is always recommended to update to the most current version of R andBioconductor. If this is not possible and R < 3.5.0 , please use the followingfor installing Bioconductor packages

To install core packages, type the following in an R command window:

Install specific packages, e.g., “GenomicFeatures” and “AnnotationDbi”, with

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