What happens if you delete quarantined files

If all your programs are running fine, and your system isn't crashing, you can happily delete those files. You may find files in quarantine that surprise you: files that have been on your computer a long time, or files that a program needs in order to run. These may be the victims of a false alarm. If a program won't run because a file is in quarantine, use your discretion before restoring it or adding it to exceptions. Read up about the suspected virus and see if it makes sense.

Very often, you can send that file to the support team behind your antivirus and they can check it out. If it is a false alarm, they can teach their antivirus program to recognize it. A quarantined virus is perfectly harmless while in quarantine. It cannot run, and it's well hidden. Human nature, of course, would prefer it entirely off the premises, so once you're sure it's not a file your computer needs — delete!

June 3, The Danger of Deleting Viruses. Quarantined files are not deleted unless you want them to be. As mentioned above, quarantining a suspicious file merely relocates the infected file into a safe space on your computer. You will need to instruct your antivirus to delete the file or otherwise delete it yourself manually. You can keep a file in quarantine indefinitely, but if an important file that is infected, you should place it in quarantine and clean it.

While quarantining a virus is safe and the best course of action for infected files, there is always the risk of your antivirus making a false alert and quarantining a system file that your computer needs to run effectively. Which is why the deleting process is usually left to your discretion. Quarantined files cannot harm your computer but they do still take up valuable space on your hard drive. Therefore, if you have infected files in quarantine, you should clean them as soon as possible.

Not all antivirus programs will be able to detect all threats. Full system scans will uncover more infected files than basic antivirus scans , simply because more files are being scanned. The more files you scan, the higher the possibility that your scan will uncover an infected file, so a full scan is always recommended wherever possible.

As mentioned above, certain antivirus programs are better at detecting and removing certain strains of viruses or malware than others. This could affect the functionality of your operating system and programs. Cleaning can be useful, but antivirus software can't clean a worm or a Trojan because there is nothing to clean; the entire file is the worm or Trojan. Quarantine occupies the middle ground, moving the file to safe storage that's under the control of the antivirus application so that it can't harm your system.

This gives you the option to restore the file in case you decide the file was mistakenly tagged as harmful. Generally speaking, the best option for a worm or Trojan is to quarantine or delete. If it's a true virus, the best option is to clean. However, this assumes you are able to distinguish exactly what type it is, which might not always be the case. The best rule of thumb is to proceed along the continuum from the safe option to the safest.

Start by cleaning the virus. If the antivirus scanner reports that it cannot clean it, choose to quarantine it so that you have time to examine what it is and decide if you want to delete it.

Delete the virus only: 1 if the AV scanner specifically recommends this; 2 if you've done research and found that the file is totally useless and you're certain it's not a legitimate file; or 3 if there's simply no other option. Check the default settings in your antivirus software to see what options have been preconfigured for automatic use, and adjust accordingly.

Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Use precise geolocation data. Adware and other types of potentially unwanted programs are kept in quarantine indefinitely until you make a decision about them. This way, ensures the security of your PC and lets you decide what to do with quarantined items. This can be useful should you need to recover a file or program that has been neutralized. You make this decision under your own responsibility although it is not advisable to do so.

You can also completely delete the files and programs you want.