What does the Secure Shredder do?

Applies to:

On many modern platforms and to varying degrees, deleted data can be recovered with special tools. To reduce the risk of deleted Wickr data being recovered, the Secure Shredder runs whenever your Wickr app is running. The goal is to “sanitize” or overwrite deleted Wickr data, on a best-effort basis.

For those of our users who remember having manual controls over shredder in older versions of Wickr Me app: to simplify the app, we removed the configuration options to have the shredder continue to run the same way as a built-in function whenever you use the app. If you you'd like to take advantage of fine grain Shredder controls, please check out AWS Wickr (information is posted below).

While Secure Shredder is a strong additional step to protect your data, please be aware that there are various platform-specific functions, including cloud backup services, that continuously make copies of files or interfere with file deletion in ways that could impact the effectiveness of this feature. For instance, your deleted data may be backed up before it’s shredded/overwritten by the shredder. So it’s important to know that the feature is built as a best effort tool to significantly reduce, not eliminate risk.

For more advanced secure shredder controls, we have more fine grain features available in our AWS Wickr product - learn more at https://wickr.com/product-tiers/ and https://support.wickr.com/hc/en-us/articles/360026656694