10.4: Secure delete items directly from the Finder
Sep 06, '05 09:31:00AM
Contributed by: calum
I was getting annoyed with having to either move stuff to Trash and secure delete it there, or to open a Terminal and use srm.
To ease my frustrations, I hacked up my first Automator workflow. Launch Automator, and then add these actions:
- In the Library column, choose the Automator item, then drag the Ask for confirmation: Action to the work area on the right. Set the Message to Securely delete selected file(s)? and the Explanation to This operation cannot be undone.
- Now select the Finder entry in the Library column, and drag the Get Selected Finder Items Action to the work area, below the previous command.
- Finally, choose the Automator Library item again, and drag the Run Shell Script action to the bottom of the work area. Make sure that the Shell variable is set to /bin/sh, and change the Pass Input pop-up to as arguments. For the script itself, use the following:
#!/bin/sh
for i in "$@"
do
srm -rmf "$i"
done
Save this as a Finder plug-in (File: Save as Plug-in; I called mine "Secure Delete"), and now you can select any number of files/folders in Finder, control-click on the selection, and then select Automator -> Secure Delete from the contextual menu. Files deleted this way are obviously not recoverable, which is why I added the confirmation step ... you can omit that action if you're brave enough.
I'd love to make this even more useful by creating a keyboard shortcut for it, but although I can create the shortcut in the Mouse & Keyboard control panel, and it shows up on the Finder contextual menu, it doesn't work. Anyone managed to do this yet?
[robg adds: Be aware that secure deleting takes a bit of time, so if you think the plug-in isn't doing anything, make sure you check teh Autmator status indicator in the menu bar; it will let you know that it's still working on deleting your selection. In testing, it took roughly 35 seconds to delete an 860KB test file on my 2.0GHz Dual G5.]
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