# Question about laptop hard drives ... **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 29, 2016, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-laptop-hard-drives/770063 "2016-10-29T22:14:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Mr\_Quatro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/bc8723/32.png) [@Mr\_Quatro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Quatro)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2016, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-laptop-hard-drives/770063/1 "2016-10-29T22:14:12Z")
If two (2) people use the same laptop and have two seperate log in’s and one of the people deleates their emails and the other one doesn’t. Are they still on the hard drive? My question is simply this can a laptop hdd still hold the contents of deleated emails? ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2016, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-laptop-hard-drives/770063/2 "2016-10-29T22:19:58Z")
Yes. Generally, deleting files simply removes the “index” to the file - the file contents itself is still on the drive, until it gets overwritten, which can take an indefinite amount of time. ETA: Note that is has nothing specifically to do with Laptops - all computers work this way. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2016, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-laptop-hard-drives/770063/3 "2016-10-30T12:26:54Z")
It depends (of course). If they are copying the email off the server, and then deleting them on their computer, then they are there until the file space gets re-used. If they are only reading them off the server, then the parts they read might not even ever be copied to the HD at all. Just the memory cache of the browser/email program. Some bits of the emails might be stored on the HD as part of the cache of the program. If they didn’t even read them off the server, just clicked to delete them, then they aren’t on the computer in any form. (Note that most people have their emails set to not delete them off the server even if they are copying to their HD. This way if their copy gets messed up, they still have the copy on the server.) ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2016, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-laptop-hard-drives/770063/4 "2016-10-30T12:36:17Z")
> [@Mr\_Quatro](#): > > If two (2) people use the same laptop and have two seperate log in’s and one of the people deleates their emails and the other one doesn’t. Are they still on the hard drive? > > My question is simply this can a laptop hdd still hold the contents of deleated emails? You’re asking two different questions here. First, if person A deletes their emails, all person B’s emails will still be on the computer. They’re different files in a different location. Second, yes various programs can probably un-delete Person A’s emails, unless lots of new files have been written since they were deleted, or they uses a secure delete program and writes many random blocks of data. ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Quatro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/bc8723/32.png) [@Mr\_Quatro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Quatro)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2016, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-laptop-hard-drives/770063/5 "2016-10-30T14:41:52Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > It depends (of course). > > If they are copying the email off the server, and then deleting them on their computer, then they are there until the file space gets re-used. > > If they are only reading them off the server, then the parts they read might not even ever be copied to the HD at all. Just the memory cache of the browser/email program. Some bits of the emails might be stored on the HD as part of the cache of the program. > > If they didn’t even read them off the server, just clicked to delete them, then they aren’t on the computer in any form. > > (Note that most people have their emails set to not delete them off the server even if they are copying to their HD. This way if their copy gets messed up, they still have the copy on the server.) Person ‘A’ logs in and copies emails on their laptop from a server for purposes of pushing print and after they print the email they deleate same email or emails … Then the email is still on the laptop untill the laptop hdd needs the space the emails take up and overwrites anything in it’s way. Correct? ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2016, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-laptop-hard-drives/770063/6 "2016-10-30T14:46:40Z")
> [@Mr\_Quatro](#): > > Person ‘A’ logs in and copies emails on their laptop from a server for purposes of pushing print and after they print the email they deleate same email or emails … > > Then the email is still on the laptop untill the laptop hdd needs the space the emails take up and overwrites anything in it’s way. > > Correct? Correct. In fact, the content of the email is likely to be in multiple locations on the drive: 1. The original file. 2. The print queue. 3. The RAM swap. ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Quatro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/bc8723/32.png) [@Mr\_Quatro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Quatro)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2016, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-laptop-hard-drives/770063/7 "2016-10-30T15:00:22Z")
> [@beowulff](#): > > Correct. > In fact, the content of the email is likely to be in multiple locations on the drive: > > 1. The original file. > 2. The print queue. > 3. The RAM swap. I didn’t know that … thank you beowulff … so you would need special tools to retreive these emails? Not a job for a normal person, uh? ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2016, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-laptop-hard-drives/770063/8 "2016-10-30T15:27:03Z")
> [@Mr\_Quatro](#): > > I didn’t know that … thank you beowulff … so you would need special tools to retreive these emails? > > Not a job for a normal person, uh? A “normal person” will not be able to recover a deleted file without the help of some software tools. Professionals do this by cloning the hard drive, and then working on the clone, so that any data isn’t going to get written over while it’s being searched for. It should be noted that SSDs complicate this situation. They leave file fragments around during normal operation, and even overwriting the file isn’t guaranteed to erase it. IMHO, this is less of a problem that most people make it out to be, because blocks should be erased by the SSD automatically, but it’s device-dependent. ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Quatro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/bc8723/32.png) [@Mr\_Quatro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Quatro)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2016, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-laptop-hard-drives/770063/9 "2016-10-31T15:16:49Z")
One more question … I’m not that good at math. How much room would 650,000 emails take up? On a normal laptop hdd that is? or two more questions If the 650k emails were deleated and were not wiped from others using the same hdd on another log in … then the hdd had to be how big? ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2016, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-laptop-hard-drives/770063/10 "2016-10-31T15:29:49Z")
There’s no way to know. On of my email accounts has 7,300 emails in it. It’s mailbox size is 994.4MB But email size is mostly determined by content. If they are just text, the emails are going to be very small (a few k). If they have lots of attachments, the sizes can be 1,000x as big (or bigger). If we make the assumption that the emails you are concerned with are about the same size as the ones in my inbox, then they would take around 88GB. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2016, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-laptop-hard-drives/770063/11 "2016-10-31T16:29:52Z")
> [@Mr\_Quatro](#): > > How much room would 650,000 emails take up? How much room would 650,000 boxes take up?