MacBook Air :: How To Delete Private Data Permanently
Sep 28, 2009
I need to return company Macbook Air and I want to be sure all my private data are permanently deleted and unrecoverable. I know it is not enough to simply delete them, so please, can someone suggest a more secure way? Should I format my Air and if so, how can I do it?
I have a MacBook Pro with OS X.... I use Mail for my emails. how to perminantly the delete the email in my trash and computer. I keep trying to empty the trash, but, it keeps showing back up.
I've been a PC user for 20 years, but thinking of switching to an Imac. My main concern before plunging in is with regards to data protection - particularly if I have to send the Imac in for repair. On my PC, I can control what part I want to replace, and I never send a harddrive in for repair. I'm paranoid about data privacy.
But if I buy an Imac, removing the harddrive violates the warranty. And if my Imac refuses to bootup, I can't wipe the drive before sending in for repair. Will the apple repair center be willing to remove the harddrive and return it to me before starting repair?
I have to get a pic off of my computer and out of my cloud --- permanently (old pic of an ex - haha). I selected the photo and a yellow outline of the photo appeared. I clicked DELETE and it disappeared from my iPhoto library. But when I was streaming photos to my tv over Apple TV the picture came up - even though I deleted it.
I have an issue that is affecting both my MBP and iMac. I believe it is due to a Blackberry mobile phone but not entirely sure.Â
In the bluetooth prefs, when i click the 'advanced' button, my computers are listing 2 extra serial ports, both default as active (on} and with no authentication.
I have tried deleting the bluetooth preferences file but it makes no difference. Every time i delete these serial ports, they reappear a short time later and also on every restart. It is as if the bluetooth defaults have been permanently modified Â
The reason i found these odd settings was because a bluetooth PAN had mysteriously appeared in my network settings. This happened on both my computers so maybe it is possible that i have inadvertently installed a trojan on both machines. Also, going back a few months, i had to call Apple to remove an iPhone that had been added under my Apple ID. I have never owned an iPhone so i wonder if this bluetooth issue is related to that.Â
I have tried to find any terminal commands that can alter the bluetooth defaults but not had any success ...
Info: MacBook Pro (13-inch Early 2011), OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.5)
But I have 2 files IN the Trash that, when I try a delete them by clicking EMPTY, I get a response that they cant be permanently removed as they are in use. Other files deleted permanently just fine.But these 2 wont. And they aren't in use. I have no applications open. I have restarted my MAC and still they are 'in use'.Â
My Powerbook will be sold so i want to make certain that the new owner will not be able to get his hands on my data files if he tries to use a recovery application. What is the best way to make data i have on my power book to not be recoverable?
I'm trying to delete a bunch of unwanted files that take up a lot of space, and I'm finding this file that is 2 gigs, which labeled: private/var/vm/sleepimage, but I can't access the file or delete it. (I'm using a program called GrandPerspective which visually represents how memory is being used).
I'm doing some major maintenance of my Macbook at the moment, and so far that has included running Onyx and Cocktail, and I'm not in the process of defragmenting files and free space with TechTool.In the process of defragmenting files, a few files called "daily.out" cropped up as fragmented and large. They were contained inside a folder called /private/var/folders.Â
On inspecting this folder, it would seem that all of its contents are subfolders with "cache" or "tmp" in them. I assume these are all temporary files and caches, using my incredible genius discerning skills. Â
Question is, can I safely just trash the entire contents of this /folders/ directory? Some of these caches and logs have grown to gigantic sized, the entire folder is about 200MB at this stage, and they remain even though I used Onyx and Cocktail to clear out caches.
exactly what is this directory used for and which caches are they? They're obviously not the same caches as you find in /Library/Caches or ~/Library/Caches/, so what's the difference? Can they safely be gotten rid of? When running cocktail, one of the options is to ignore the caches of audio units and such, I work often with DAWs so I was just wondering, what good does a "cache" do for these plugins, and why wouldn't you want to clear them from time to time?Â
EDIT: Also I did a full and complete backup of my entire HD using Carbon Copy before I started my maintenance session so I'm ok with taking risks, if there's a slight possibility of this causing problems. I'd just like to know what might happen first.
My sister has a Mac OS 9. She is thinking about getting a newer computer and is wondering how she would go about making sure that any and all info on the computer is destroyed.
How can I delete an app I don't want anymore ever again? I delete it and move to trash and it still shows up when I'm in the AppStore under purchases?
I'm a recent mac converter. Hope someone can help me out.
Now in XP I was able to remove certain files from the trash bin. I never actually emptied the entire trash bin, but once in a while would delete the oldest files from the trash bin and keep the new ones.
Is this possible in OS X? I was only able to empty the entire trash bin, but not certain parts of it.
I recently reset the boot thingy, (with shift-control-r-p) and repaired disk permissions. now if I delete something it will ask "are you sure you want to delete XXX, this item will be deleted immediately, you cant undo this action"
google this and it seems more ppl are wanting this feature but I dont, how do I get it back my normal trash bin? I tried in Finder's preferences, didnt work.
I am in some sort of weird loop and cannot actually delete songs I purchased from the iTunes store.Â
1. I purchased the song on my iPhone
2. It automatically got downloaded to my iTunes on my Mac
3. I decided I don't want the song - I hit delete - it asks me to confirm if I want to delete from iCloud as well - I say yes - it asks me if I want to move the file to the trash - I say yes - and it temporarily disappears
4. Next time I sync my phone, it shows up again. No way to delete it directly from phone.Â
What's strange is shouldn't it delete it on my phone since I'm deleting it from iTunes before I sync?
I am scared to buy new songs now as I don't want to be stuck with them forever in case I don't like them..
I just updated to iCloud/Lion and now I can't permanently delete any of my me.com messages. This only happens in the iCloud mailbox. I can permanently delete messages from all of my other email accounts. I will delete a message in the iCloud mailbox and when I go to my inbox, the message is back. I checked my preferences and I have "Move deleted message to the Trash mailbox" selected and "Store deleted messages on the server" not selected.Â
I ripped a few movies from my personal DVD collection onto my MBP to watch on the road during a recent business trip. When I got home, I went to delete them by putting them in the trash. It worked, or so I thought. The folders containing the movie disappeared from my desktop, but the 6 or 7 gigs of space that they took up were still on my HD (I have the status readout below my HD icon on my desktop and it was unchanged after I trashed the movie). After some research I learned that trashing the file doesn't actually take it off the HD, that I'd have to empty my trash bin to get rid of it permanently. But like many of you, I don't want to completely empty my trash. Is there a way to permanently get rid of individual files/folders? I saw a few ideas. I saw a program called permanent eraser. I also saw where someone suggested using Terminal and some rf commands.
I've downloaded 100 Apps since getting my iPhone. Of which, only 70 I've enabled to be sync'd to my iPhone. If updates are available for the other 30, iTunes downloads them even though I am not sync'ing them to my iPhone. Is there a way to permanently delete these unwanted Apps from my iTunes so that I am not spending time getting updates to Apps I am no longer intersted in?
I have an Iphone and Mac Air, using the same account on both. I have deleted a contact from my list however whenever I type in the name in the 'TO' line of Imessage on Mac is there altough is deleted from the contacts from both Iphone and Mac. the contact has not been used recently. Last time when I texted it was 4 months ago