Where do deleted files go? Do they really get deleted and if so, how?
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Files are stored on storage devices like hard drives as a series of ones and zeros. The operating system keeps track of which files are kept on which portion of the storage device, so it knows where to look when you open a file.
Usually, deleting a file just tells the operating system that that space is available on the disc to overwrite. It doesn’t actually remove the ones and zeros that constitute the file.
It is possible to more securely delete a file, which involves overwriting the space where the file was with zeros. Sometimes, for extra security, you will override the file with zeros, then ones, then zeros again, many many times. This ensures that there is no way to tell what state the bits on the storage device were actually in before.
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