Secure Empty Trash helps me regain GB's but not Empty Trash...?

[HappyDude20]

I've noticed that when I "Secure Empty Trash" though it takes longer, I usually regain a lot of gigabytes back. Currently, as of this post i'm "secure emptying trash" and i've regained about 25GB's which sounds about right considering there was about that much worth of video recordings from my video camera I no longer needed.

In the past when I've just "deleted trash" i've seen different results. If I have say 10GB's in the trash and I just "empty trash" then i'll maybe gain back like a GB or 2. ...if anything.

So, my concern is...say currently with the 25GB amount of trash I have, If I decided to just "empty trash", I obviously would not have gained back all the 25GB's..., perhaps just a few, guessing something like 5GB.

Well, does that mean that those GB's that are emptied in the trash (not securely) are just lost forever?

..Or will I regain those GB's the next time around (say weeks later) I securely empty the trash with whatever happens to be in there (all new stuff in the trash)?

Am I making sense?

Kinda confusing to me cause I don't understand it. But I feel it's vital for me to get this and have the most amount of gigs available on my Mac now that i'm using about 30GB's per week filming stuff and editing it on iMovie.

 

[spinnerlys]

Emptying the Trash does not delete the actual data, only the pointer to it. But OS X should show the gained HDD space nevertheless.

Securely emptying the Trash means that the files get overwritten with zeros, so that recovery is almost impossible.

Have you repaired permissions via Disk Utility? What Mac OS X version are you using?

 

[HappyDude20]

Emptying the Trash does not delete the actual data, only the pointer to it. But OS X should show the gained HDD space nevertheless.

Securely emptying the Trash means that the files get overwritten with zeros, so that recovery is almost impossible.

Have you repaired permissions via Disk Utility? What Mac OS X version are you using?

Hey, thanks for the replies Spinnerlys (you've been helpful to me in more than one post)

I'm currently using 10.6.2

Regarding permissions via disk utility, I have not. Is there anything to keep in mind with this? Essentially the times i've used Disk Utility is to erase an external HD or something similar. Will repairing permissions for the HD inside my MBP mess anything up or is it pretty straight forward?

 

[spinnerlys]

Hey, thanks for the replies Spinnerlys (you've been helpful to me in more than one post)

I'm currently using 10.6.2

Regarding permissions via disk utility, I have not. Is there anything to keep in mind with this? Essentially the times i've used Disk Utility is to erase an external HD or something similar. Will repairing permissions for the HD inside my MBP mess anything up or is it pretty straight forward?

Thanks for thanks.


Repairing permissions will not mess up anything (but that is of course not 100%, but 99.9%).

Have a look here and here.