Most people assume that deleting files and emptying the Recycle Bin permanently removes them—but that’s not true. Those “deleted” files still sit on your drive and can be restored with recovery tools. So how do you securely erase sensitive data? You can use sDelete, Microsoft’s tool to wipe data.
Why deleting a file doesn’t really remove it
When you delete a file the usual way, it moves to the Recycle Bin, which you can empty later. Using Shift+Delete bypasses the Recycle Bin, but in both cases, the data isn’t truly erased. Windows just removes its reference from the file system and marks the space as available. The data itself remains on the drive until new files overwrite it.
This means that if someone uses a recovery tool—like Recuva, Disk Drill, or advanced forensic software—they can still see and restore that file. So, if you sell or give away your laptop or hard drive after deleting your documents, photos, financial records, or other sensitive files, the new owner could recover them if nothing new has overwritten that space. Even if you simply want to prevent other users from accessing your files, regular deletion methods won’t work. To securely erase data, you need a dedicated Microsoft tool: sDelete.
sDelete: Microsoft’s tool to permanently wipe files
sDelete (short for Secure Delete) is a powerful yet often-overlooked command-line tool from Microsoft’s Sysinternals suite, designed to permanently and irreversibly wipe data. Instead of simply marking a file as deleted, sDelete overwrites the underlying data on the drive, making it practically impossible to recover.
Because of this deep overwrite process, even advanced forensic recovery tools can’t recover the deleted data. And since sDelete is developed and maintained by Microsoft, it’s far more trustworthy than many third-party “secure eraser” utilities. It overwrites the exact sectors where your files once existed and also removes metadata that Windows normally leaves behind. sDelete is most effective on HDDs. It works on SSDs as well, but because SSDs constantly remap storage blocks and use TRIM, sDelete cannot guarantee overwriting the exact physical cells where your file was stored—so it removes as much residual data as the hardware allows. However, sDelete removes traces left by standard deletion, giving you a secure wipe.
How to set up sDelete for the first time
sDelete isn’t included with Windows by default, so you’ll need to download it manually. Head to Microsoft’s Sysinternals website, download the sDelete ZIP file, save it to your PC, and extract it to C:\Program Files. Next, type View advanced system settings, open the matching result, switch to the “Advanced” tab, and click “Environment Variables.” Under System Variables, select the “Path” entry and click “Edit.” Choose “New” to add a fresh line, then click “Browse” to select a folder. Navigate to C:\Program Files, select the extracted sDelete folder, and confirm with “OK.” This updates your system’s PATH and completes the basic setup for sDelete.
How to use sDelete to erase files permanently
Since sDelete is a command-line utility, you can use it through Command Prompt. Open Command Prompt as administrator, type sdelete, and press Enter. You’ll see the available parameters you can use for secure deletion and disk cleanup. The first time you launch it, a License Agreement will appear—just click “Agree” to proceed. To securely delete a file with sDelete, first copy its full file path. Navigate to the folder containing the file, right-click it, and select “Copy as Path.” Then, open Command Prompt, type sDelete followed by the full path (including the file extension), and press Enter. For example, to delete a file named HTG.txt, type sDelete, paste the path, and hit Enter—the file will be securely deleted. To delete an entire folder along with its subdirectories and any read-only files, use the -s and -r parameters before the folder path: sDelete -s -r
This command will display the number of directories and files that were deleted. By default, sDelete overwrites space once to make recovery more difficult. To increase the number of overwrites, use the -p parameter followed by the desired number. For example, to delete a folder with all subdirectories and read-only files while overwriting four times, use: sDelete -s -r -p 4
Other ways to securely wipe SSDs besides sDelete
You can rely on sDelete to securely wipe sensitive files on a drive you’ll continue using—especially if it’s a Hard Disk Drive (HDD). For Solid State Drives (SSDs), though, the safest method is to enable full-drive encryption with BitLocker and then securely remove the encryption keys, which makes all previously stored data inaccessible.
If you’re planning to sell or hand your PC over, it’s better to use Windows’ built-in reset tool. Right-click the Start button, open “Settings,” then navigate to System > Recovery. Click “Reset PC,” choose “Remove Everything,” and follow the prompts to securely wipe all your data. If you once believed that deleting a file completely removes it from your drive, you now know that’s not the case. sDelete is a powerful solution, but it doesn’t need to be used for every deletion—reserve it for sensitive files. Also, keep in mind that files deleted with sDelete cannot be recovered, even with advanced recovery tools. So you could end up losing data if you delete a file by mistake.
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This was originally posted by HowtoGeek.