The secure erase free space feature has been removed form Disk Utility in El Capitan (10.11) and later because it isn't useful for SSDs. It can still be accessed from the command line, like this...
diskutil secureErase freespace
Where "level" is a number from 0 to 4 indicating the type of erasing to do... 0 = Single pass zero fill erase. 1 = Single pass random fill erase. 2 = US DoD 7 pass secure erase. 3 = Gutmann algorithm 35 pass secure erase. 4 = US DoE algorithm 3 pass secure erase.
And "drivename" is the path to the drive, like /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD. Note the escaping of the space in the drive name above. You can see the mounted disks using the distil list command.
IMPORTANT: Don't forget the "freespace" option to make sure the whole disk isn't erased!
I usually write a blog post about once a week. The latest post can be viewed here: Think for Yourself: In the end, everything is just an opinion. Be skeptical, and think for yourself! (posted 2026-04-25 at 21:12:02). I do podcasts too! You can listen to my latest podcast, here: OJB's Podcast 2026-04-14 How Far is that Star?: How would we really know how big the universe is?
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