Is it true that once files are deleted from the recycling bin (or “trash” via Mac), they remain stored somewhere on a hard drive? If so, wouldn’t this still fill up space?
If you can fully delete them, are the files actually destroyed in a sense?
In: Technology
Files are just a series of zeroes and ones stored in different ways depending on the media. Since there can be potentially millions of files, the computer keeps an index that tells it where to find those bits based on the name. When you delete a file, typically what happens is that only the index entry is removed. It becomes hard to find, but the bits are all still there.
There is software that can scan media and find these “orphaned” files and create an index entry for them, so make them reappear under a different name.
To really delete a file, there is software that saves all zeroes or all ones or all random bits to the same area of the media, causing the informatio to be really lost.
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