SHRED(1)

NAME
shred - overwrite a file to hide its contents, and optionally delete it

SYNOPSIS
shred [OPTION]... FILE...

DESCRIPTION

Overwrite the specified FILE(s) repeatedly, in order to make it harder for even very expensive hardware probing to recover the data.

If FILE is -, shred standard output.

Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too.

-f, --force
    change permissions to allow writing if necessary

-n, --iterations=N
    overwrite N times instead of the default (3)

--random-source=FILE
    get random bytes from FILE

-s, --size=N
    shred this many bytes (suffixes like K, M, G accepted)

-u  deallocate and remove file after overwriting

--remove[=HOW]
    like -u but give control on HOW to delete; See below

-v, --verbose
    show progress

-x, --exact
    do not round file sizes up to the next full block; this is the default for non-regular files

-z, --zero
    add a final overwrite with zeros to hide shredding

--help
    display this help and exit

--version
    output version information and exit

Delete FILE(s) if --remove (-u) is specified. The default is not to remove the files because it is common to operate on device files like /dev/hda, and those files usually should not be removed. The optional HOW parameter indicates how to remove a directory entry: 'unlink' => use a standard unlink call. 'wipe' => also first obfuscate bytes in the name. 'wipesync' => also sync each obfuscated byte to the device. The default mode is 'wipesync', but note it can be expensive.

CAUTION: shred assumes the file system and hardware overwrite data in place. Although this is common, many platforms operate otherwise. Also, backups and mirrors may contain unremovable copies that will let a shredded file be recovered later. See the GNU coreutils manual for details.

AUTHOR
Written by Colin Plumb.

REPORTING BUGS
Report bugs to: bug-coreutils@gnu.org
GNU coreutils home page: <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
General help using GNU software: <https://www.gnu.org/gethelp/>
Report any translation bugs to <https://translationproject.org/team/>

COPYRIGHT
Copyright © 2025 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

SEE ALSO
Full documentation <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/shred>
or available locally via: info '(coreutils) shred invocation'