Guest User: Does Using This Account Really Delete All Files?

[HappyDude20]

I log into a family member's MBP under their Guest User account frequently and i've edited GB's worth of movie files and documents and it says it'll erase all these files upon logging out, but is that really the case?

Is it securely erased or is some other format at play here?

Just wondering.

 

[FreakinEurekan]

Depends what you mean by "Securely". The files are deleted - could the NSA dig them back up? Who knows. But they're deleted, the space is released back to the OS for other use.

 

[maflynn]

Is it securely erased or is some other format at play here?

No, its just deleted. Since the guest account states this:

It just simply removes them and if someone with a little bit of knowledge were to try to recover them, they may be successful

 

[richwoodrocket]

"Video files"

 

[yjchua95]

"Video files"

I see what you did there...

 

[unplugme71]

No, its just deleted. Since the guest account states this:

Image
It just simply removes them and if someone with a little bit of knowledge were to try to recover them, they may be successful

Chances are, as a guest user, you are not going to have access to recover the files that were deleted. So its assumed, the next 'guest' user can't access anything the previous guest user did.

Personally, I always liked DeepFreeze. Every reboot brings you back up to the last frozen system state. When you need to install or update, you unfreeze, do the updates, test, then freeze it back.

That way, actual user accounts that accidentally delete something can reboot and have it back and working.

You create a thawed partition for people to actually save files. These won't be erased upon reboot and also aren't protected by DeepFreeze from mistakes. But Time Machine can take care of this