Manual: gnushred

SHRED(1)						User Commands						    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  recov‐
       ered later.  See the GNU coreutils manual for details.

AUTHOR
       Written by Colin Plumb.

REPORTING BUGS
       GNU coreutils online help: 
       Report any translation bugs to 

SEE ALSO
       Full documentation 
       or available locally via: info '(coreutils) shred invocation'

       Packaged by Ubuntu (9.7-3ubuntu2)
       Copyright © 2025 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
       License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later .
       This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
       There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

GNU coreutils 9.7					January 2026						    SHRED(1)