SHRED

shred ? delete a file securely, first overwriting it to hide its contents

shred [OPTIONS] FILE [...]

Delete a file securely, first overwriting it to hide its contents.

?f, ??force

change permissions to allow writing if necessary

?n, ??iterations=N

Overwrite N times instead of the default (25)

?s, ??size=N

shred this many bytes (suffixes like k, M, G accepted)

?u, ??remove

truncate and remove file after overwriting

?v, ??verbose

show progress

?x, ??exact

do not round file sizes up to the next full block

?z, ??zero

add a final overwrite with zeros to hide shredding

-

shred standard output

??help

display this help and exit

??version

print version information and exit

FIXME maybe add more discussion here?

Written by Colin Plumb.

Report bugs to <bug-fileutils@gnu.org>.

Copyright © 1999 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

The full documentation for shred is maintained as a Texinfo manual. If the info and shred programs are properly installed at your site, the command

info shred

should give you access to the complete manual.