---
title: "Four ways to get the gigabytes back · DuplicateDuster"
description: "The recycle bin, permanent deletion, a secure overwrite, or a hard link that keeps every path working."
url: "https://royalsoftworks.com/products/duplicate-duster/features/reclaim/"
source: "https://royalsoftworks.com"
format: "markdown"
note: "Markdown rendering of the HTML page at `url`. Same content, same canonical URL."
---

Features · 2 of 4

# Four ways to get the gigabytes back.

The recycle bin, permanent deletion, a secure overwrite, or a hard link that keeps every path working.

Reclaiming the space

## Four ways to get the gigabytes back.

Deleting isn't always what you want. Sometimes the copy has to be unrecoverable; sometimes it needs to stay exactly where it is, under its own name, without costing you the disk space twice.

### Recycle bin

default

The copy goes where the OS puts deleted files. Reversible for as long as you haven't emptied it — which is why it's what the app starts on.

### Permanent delete

opt-in

Straight unlink, no bin. For the case where the recycle bin is the problem — a drive that's already full and can't hold the deleted copies too.

### Secure erase

opt-in

Three overwrite passes (0xFF, 0x00, random), the filename scrambled through several renames, timestamps zeroed, then unlinked. On Linux it hands off to shred where available.

### Hard link

opt-in

The copy is replaced by a hard link to the original: both filenames survive, both paths still open the file, and the duplicate's blocks go back to the filesystem. Same volume only — checked before anything moves.

**The honest caveat on secure erase:**overwriting assumes the bytes you write land on the bytes you meant to destroy. On SSDs, wear levelling and TRIM mean that isn't guaranteed. This raises the cost of recovery substantially; it does not promise erasure on flash storage, and full-disk encryption is the real answer there. We say so in the app too.

[Previous Nothing is deleted until you say so.](https://royalsoftworks.com/products/duplicate-duster/features/nothing-deleted/) [Next What makes the scan trustworthy.](https://royalsoftworks.com/products/duplicate-duster/features/scanning/)

[All of DuplicateDuster features](https://royalsoftworks.com/products/duplicate-duster/features/)

<!-- verse:royalsoftworks
     Jakovljeva 4:8
     Približite se k Bogu, i On će se približiti k vama. Očistite ruke, grešnici, popravite srca svoja, nepostojani.
     https://www.wordproject.org/bibles/verses/serbian/02_prayer.htm
-->