Securely Wipe/Erase Files in Ubuntu via Right Click menu in Nautilus

Adding wipe to your Nautilus context menu is useful in making it so that you can securely delete any number of files and/or folders at one time simply by selecting them, right clicking, and clicking wipe. Before you can add wipe to the context menu you must have nautilus-actions and wipe installed. To install them on a Debian based system, at the terminal, simply type:


sudo apt-get install wipe
sudo apt-get install nautilus-actions


When you install nautilus-actions a GUI based tool will be installed to allow you configure context menu additions. Access it by, at the terminal, typing:
nautilus-actions-config

Adding the wipe command to the context menu is now very straight forward. The following instructions were written for nautilus-actions 1.4.1:

1. Click the +Add button.
2. For the label enter: Wipe.
3. For the tooltip enter: Use the wipe utility to securely delete the file(s)/folder(s).
4. For the path enter: wipe
5. For the parameters enter: -rf %M
6. Go to the Conditions tab and select the radio button labeled "Both" for when the command should appear and check "Appears if select has multiple files or folders"
7. I left everything else at their defaults. If you don't want to do any further customization just hit OK and close the configuration tool.

8. You can select an icon, I prefer the gtk-dialog-warning icon.
The parameters to wipe, -rf %M, causes files and folders to be deleted without prompting. Due to the -r command, if there are files or subfolders in a selected folder they will also be wiped. If you would like for files to be wiped even when write permission is not set change the parameters to: -rcf %M.

The final step is to reset nautilus. At the terminal type:

nautilus -q
nautilus


You will now have a command for wipe in your Nautilus context menu that allows you to securely delete any number of files and/or folders in two clicks.

Comments (7)

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Awesome, great tip -- thanks. Not sure if I care so much about Wipe as much as I do having learned how to make custom actions in Nautilus.
Ubuntu Unleased's avatar

Ubuntu Unleased · 880 weeks ago

when I run nautilus -q
nautilus it says ** (nautilus:6334): WARNING **: Unable to add monitor: Not supported
whats up with that?
when I run nautilus -q

nautilus it says ** (nautilus:6334): WARNING **: Unable to add monitor: Not supported even in root

whats up with that?
Abdullah the Butcher's avatar

Abdullah the Butcher · 841 weeks ago

This doesn't work without further configuration or something. Linux-typical.
Can't we have a confirmation dialog to ask before deleting! It'll take just one misclick to erase one's files!!
@Abdullah the Butcher
"This doesn't work without further configuration or something" Ignorant Typical
>> fixed.

Reboot your machine and select Windows please. Friendly Penguin doesn't like you

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