I'm on Windows 10 and we know that the deleted files can be read back by some software. Like this one:
If the file hasn't been overwritten, it can even be recovered. Is it possible for me to delete these deleted file names so that people can't use this kind of software to read them back? I don't need to delete the actual file data, just file name is enough and I guess it should be faster as the actual data isn't touched.
2 Answers
When you delete a file, it is not actually deleted. Windows only removes the reference to the file in File system table. But you can recover these files by reading the magnetic fields on disk surface. Softwares like Recuva do that. Unless you purge (create another file over that) it remains on the disk.
But you can use a free software named Eraser for hard wipes that completely makes deleted files unrecoverable. Once installed it will install some context menus, which you can right click and use to wipe files permanently.
Link:
Expanding on Wasif's answer:
Like mentioned, the only thing that gets deleted is the reference to the file. The actual files are still "there" on your disk. I don't know of any ways to "rename" those files for example. One of the options is to copy some other files onto your disk, so the data from your deleted files gets overwritten.
AVG also has a feature named File Shredder that shreds files for you so that they cannot be recovered - it's not free though. It's a part of their "Internet Security" package.
