Completely remove documents from laptop

collinsca

I have a laptop that I wish to remove all documents from Word, Excel etc, but at the same time keep all of the programs on it.

Advice appreciated on how this can be achieved.

I did delete all of the documents out of "My Documents", however I now notice the "Recent documents" in Word and Excel show up... so I've not done the best job.

Thanks

MikeJXE

Go into settings and set it back to factory settings that will delete everything except what is was purchased with.

mta999

No need to factory reset

the list in recent documents on word etc is simply that - a record of what your recent documents were

Try and open each one you will likely find they are deleted

Or you can open 'computer' and for each Drive search for docx or xlsx files to see if any are found

collinsca

MikeJXE said:

Go into settings and set it back to factory settings that will delete everything except what is was purchased with.

Thanks.
I have purchases some software though, that i want to remain on it.

Frozen_up_north

You might try running a cleanup utility such as Bleachbit, which should securely erase temporary files, etc. However, if you use an SSD, data can be hidden on the drive courtesy of wear levelling, making erasing data difficult.
Depending on how sensitive the data is, you might consider physically destroying the drive. This is the only way to know for certain the data is fully deleted.

fwor

It depends on whether you intend to retain control over the laptop after the removal has been done.

If you do, then destroying the hard drive is definitely going too far! And probably won't do much good in terms of keeping access to the software. If you just want to protect that data from being seen by other casual users then you don't need to do much more than you already have - plus of course deleting your file history so that the names of the (already deleted) files are no longer visible.

If you do not intend to retain control of the laptop, the answer is different, and depends on the degree of certainty that you need to be sure that they cannot be retrieved by a future owner. But that does not seem to be the case here.

collinsca

Thanks both.

I will retain control - certainly in the immediacy - i thought there might be a simple thing im missing...

"deleting your file history so that the names of the (already deleted) files are no longer visible" is definitely something id like to do and might suffice!
How do i do this please?

fwor

Sorry - it's been two decades since I was last a Windows user, so although I could probably remember how to do it with File Manager or Word 97 under Windows XP, it would not be relevant to a current Windows user! No doubt someone else here has more up to date knowledge of Windows.

GrubbyGirl_2

Go to recent file list - right click on a file then select remove from list

collinsca

GrubbyGirl_2 said:

Go to recent file list - right click on a file then select remove from list

Thanks !!!

mta999

Or go to Word settings and then Excel settings and change the number of 'recent files shown' to 0