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File deletion is a way of removing a file from a computer's file system.

Examples of reasons for deleting files are:

• Freeing the disk space
• Removing duplicate or unnecessary data to avoid confusion
• Making sensitive information unavailable to others

All operating systems include commands for deleting files (rm on Unix, era in CP/M and DR-DOS, del/erase in MS-DOS/PC DOS, DR-DOS, Microsoft Windows etc.). File managers also provide a convenient way of deleting files. Files may be deleted one-by-one, or a whole directory tree may be deleted.

Contents [hide]

• 1 Problem with accidental removal
• 2 Problem with sensitive data
• 3 See also
• 4 References

Problem with accidental removal[edit]Main article: Data recovery

The common problem with deleting files is accidental removal of information that later proves to be important. One way to deal with this is to back up files regularly. Erroneously deleted files may then be found in archives.

Another technique often used is not to delete files instantly, but to move them to a temporary directory whose contents can then be deleted at will. This is how the "recycle bin" or "trash can" works. Microsoft Windows and Apple's Mac OS X, as well as some Linux distributions, all employ this strategy.

In MS-DOS, one can use the undelete command. In MS-DOS the "deleted" files are not really deleted, but only marked as deleted—so they could be undeleted during some time, until the disk blocks they used are eventually taken up by other files. This is how data recovery programs work, by scanning for files that have been marked as deleted. As the space is free up per byte, rather than per file, this can sometimes cause for data to be recovered incompletely. Defragging a drive may prevent undeletion, as the blocks used by deleted file might be overwritten since they are marked as "empty".

Another precautionary measure is to mark important files as read-only. Many operating systems will warn the user trying to delete such files. Where file system permissions exist, users who lack the necessary permissions are only able to delete their own files, preventing the erasure of other people's work or critical system files.

Under Unix-like operating systems, in order to delete a file, one must usually have write permission to the parent directory of that file.

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