How to securely delete files in Windows with Eraser (Win7 x64 included)

Eraser is a beautiful piece of open-source software, which helps you improve your digital hygine by going over all of the files you've deleted and scrambling them on disk, so they could never be restored.

Eraser is oriented to run in "batch mode" – meaning, it's very good at running as a scheduled task, in which it can delete the contents specific folder or go over your entire disk and scrub the unused space of all the remains of the files you deleted. It can even empty your recycle bin for you, and then securely wipe it.

But what if you just want to securely delete one specific file? This is a question we received from a reader over email, and so I've decided to write up this short post to explain how to do this.

The simplest way is to opt in for the Shell Extension when installing Eraser. This adds yet another entry to your default file context menu, under X64 (in the case of Windows 7 x64) > Eraser > and there you get Erase or Erase on Restart (which executes on the next boot).

In case you happen to detest that context menu as much as I do, here's how to do it with Eraser's nice UI:

1) Double-click Eraser's system tray icon.
2) Hit Ctrl-N to open the Task Properties window for a new task.
3) In Task Type click Run immediately.
4) Click Add Data.
5) In the Select Data to Erase dialog, select either File or Files in folder, and point to where your files are.
6) Hit OK twice (once for Select Data to Erase and once for Task Properties.
7) Right-click your task in the list and select Run Now (for some reason, you need to do this even if you select Run immediately in step 3 above).

That's it! This 7-step process is definitely more complex than the right-click option, but both ways work equally well. Now you know how to really delete your files, even under Windows 7 x64.

Tags: eraser, free, open source, OpenSource, privacy, security