Is there a way to securely delete e-mails on Entourage? Is there a way
to securely emptying the trash, just like MacOS has a "Secure Empty
Trash?
Entourage does not have a secure delete. However, that doesn't mean they are
easily recovered as anyone that has accidentally deleted the trash or tried
to recover from a corrupted database.
You can choose to 'nuke' a message before sending it to the trash. I'm not
however, sure if it's truly nuked from your HD and not just Entourage. I'll
ask one of the scripters to see what I can find out.
Nuke Messages:
<
http://www.entourage.mvps.org/downloads/scripts/Nuke.zip>
Next is understanding how messages are stored in the database.
When you delete emails, the size of the database does not, as one might
expect, go down; instead, it remains the same. Entourage will overwrite the
space you've created (by deleting your old messages) when new messages
arrive, so in other words, your database will remain the same size for some
time, until all the freed space has effectively been overwritten. This is
similar to the way files are overwritten in the Finder.
For ordinary users this will probably suffice, but if you are working with
sensitive data, only using something like the database Utility to erase your
hard drive would absolutely get rid of your data.
I suggest you send Feedback to Microsoft. This option could make it into the
next version....it's way too late for 2008. A workaround would be the
quickest option and Nuke messages might be all that would be needed.
Under Help in the Entourage menu bar select "Send Feedback on Entourage" to
request this feature, or
click on this direct link to enter Mac Product Feedback:
<
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/default.aspx?pid=feedback>
