How To Quickly Shred A File Using Linux Terminal

Here’s how to quickly shred a file using Linux terminal:

1. Issue the following command at the terminal –

shred -uvzn <number of passes> <file name>

where,

u – remove file at the end of all iterations

v – verbose

z – overwrite with zeroes

n <number of passes> – number of times the file should be overwritten before removal

<file name> – File name of the file to be shredded

For example, to shred a file named ‘vlc2_005.png’ with 5 passes, we will issue the following command at the terminal –

shred -uvzn 5 vlc2_005.png

2. Poof! The file is gone forever!