Senior staff writer Melanie Pinola has researched, tested, and written about all types of home-office gear for Wirecutter since 2019. Prior to joining Wirecutter, she covered technology and productivity for over a dozen years for outlets such as Consumer Reports, Lifehacker, PCWorld, and Laptop Magazine.

As someone who still gets way too much mail containing personal or sensitive information, she came into this guide with a vested interest in finding the best paper shredder for her household and home office.

Even if you’re receiving paperless statements from your bank and utilities, you still need a shredder. There’s no avoiding junk mail and credit card solicitations, and a shredder is the most convenient and secure way to avoid identity theft (PDF) by destroying anything with personally identifiable information, including medical records.

You have other ways to dispose of documents with sensitive information on them, of course. You could throw them in the fireplace, rip them by hand and toss the pieces in with food or pet waste, or maybe even blend them with bleach and water until they’re pulp.

Many communities offer occasional free shredding events, too, although they’re usually limited in the amount you can shred. Alternatively, you could pay to have your documents shredded at places such as FedEx Office or Staples, but you’d have more peace of mind doing it yourself rather than having your documents stored in a universal bin until the company shreds them.

Our testing has evolved since we started covering shredders in 2014, in that we now focus solely on micro-cut shredders. That’s because they’re much more secure than cross-cut models, and their prices have dropped to the point where they’re not significantly more expensive.

Micro-cut shredders can shred a letter-size page into more than 2,000 pieces versus 400 or fewer pieces for a cross-cut shredder. They’re also more likely to have a higher, P4 security-rating level (paper shredders are rated on a seven-step scale), which is especially important if you need to destroy documents with highly sensitive information, such as medical or financial info.

To determine which models to test, we looked at owner reviews on Amazon and other retail sites, as well as specs on the manufacturers’ pages, and considered the following factors:

• Price: We looked for paper shredders from major manufacturers that retailed for less than $200, with a strong preference for those priced closer to or lower than $100. More-expensive shredders are designed for offices that shred stacks of documents continuously throughout the day; they’re overkill for a typical one- or two-person home office.
• Page capacity: Having a shredder with a higher page capacity means you can shred more paper at once, including several folded sheets. Most of the micro-cut shredders in our target price range can handle six to 12 sheets at a time; our large-capacity picks are exceptions.
• Bin capacity: The size of the wastebasket, measured in gallons, dictates how often it needs to be emptied. Most shredders in our price range go from about 4 to 6 gallons.
• Run time: The higher the shredder’s run time, the more you can continuously shred before the unit needs to take a break and cool down. Less-expensive shredders have run times of under five minutes, while the best home and small-office models have run times rated at 10 minutes or more. In our testing, most of the shredders’ bins got full within 10 to 15 minutes of nonstop shredding, rendering claims of ultra-high run times moot.
• Cooldown time: This refers to how long your shredder’s timeout needs to be after you exceed the run time. The shorter, the better, if you want to get back to your shredding job as soon as possible.
• Ability to fit under most desks: Most of the shredders we picked to test have casters and, although somewhat bulky, can fit under most desks. We tested two small shredders (the Amazon Basics 6-Sheet shredder and the Fellowes LX41-DB 8-Sheet model) that were about the size of a bathroom wastebasket, but we found their lift-up tops to be more cumbersome, messy, and dangerous to use than the pull-out bins of larger shredders.

All of the shredders we looked at can handle stapled documents, paper clips, and plastic credit cards, and a few can also grind up paper clips and CDs, which we considered a bonus.

To evaluate each shredder, we put it through a battery of tests:

• We ran through batches of letter-size paper (based on the shredder’s recommended maximum load) in succession to see if the shredder would jam or overheat under normal operating conditions.
• We purposely inserted more pages than the maximum load to see when the shredder would jam and how easily we could clear jams. (Note: Don’t do this at home. Stick to the manufacturer-recommended maximum page capacity, or fewer sheets, to avoid overworking your shredder and potentially shortening its life.)
• We timed the shredder’s run time and, if the shredder overheated, its cool-down time.
• We tested whether the shredder could destroy staples, plastic credit cards, and CDs (if the shredder maker advertised that it could). We didn’t test with paper clips because in previous tests we found that they tended to break the machines.
• We compared the shredders’ switches, buttons, and indicator lights to evaluate their ease of use.
• We noted how easy or difficult it was to empty the wastebasket, and about how many shredded pages the bin could hold before needing to be emptied.
• We used a decibel meter to measure the level of noise during shredding.

We didn’t test shredders with any materials not recommended by the manufacturer, such as cardboard, adhesive labels, file folders, envelopes with plastic windows, laminates, X-rays, or greeting cards containing sound chips or batteries.

For home offices and households, the Royal 14MC 14-Sheet Micro Cut Paper Shredder is the best value for a paper shredder.

It has a high capacity for its price, and it can handle (almost) anything you may throw at it. This 14-sheet shredder can handle nearly twice as much paper at a time as similarly priced shredders, including our former pick, the Amazon Basics 8-Sheet Micro Cut Paper Shredder. It has enough room to shred several bank and credit card statements in one go.

And although the 14MC is rated for 14 sheets, we were able to run through batches of up to 17 sheets of paper, including stapled stacks, without jamming it. (Note that we do not recommend doing this at home.) It chomped through stapled credit card statements, folded documents, and plastic credit cards like a champ, producing minuscule, undecipherable bits of paper and plastic. The only thing it can’t devour is CDs.

Clearing jams, when they happen, is easy. When we fed the shredder a stack of 18 sheets of paper, it finally jammed, but we easily cleared it using the large, round forward and reverse buttons. We preferred this shredder’s buttons to the more common sliding switch for the reverse and forward actions, because the buttons offer finer control over how long the gears spin, potentially reducing wear and tear.

By contrast, some shredders, such as the Aurora AU870MA, don’t have a manual forward option, which might make clearing tough jams more difficult.

It can shred continuously without overheating. We were able to feed the shredder stacks of sheets for about 15 minutes straight before the bin indicator said it was full. At that point, we had to empty the wastebasket before continuing.

As a result, we were never able to overtax the shredder enough to force it into a 40-minute cooldown mode—in contrast to our experience with the Fellowes Powershred 8MC5 8-Sheet Micro-Cut Paper Shredder, which overheated within five minutes of continuous use. We continued to shred paper after emptying the 14MC’s bin, and the shredder still showed no sign of stopping.

It has an on/off switch. The dedicated power switch at the back prevents the machine from running inadvertently, which offers peace of mind if you have pets or children around.

It runs quietly. This shredder produced exceptionally low noise levels in our testing, with decibels in the mid 60s (akin to the volume of a washing machine). In this regard, it was second only to our upgrade pick, which ran in the high 50s. We also found this shredder’s sound less grating than that of most other models, which seemed to clank angrily.

It has a long warranty. The Royal 14MC comes with a long, three-year warranty on the cutter and a one-year warranty on parts and labor. Many shredders don’t have an extended warranty on the cutting blade.

As a Costco-exclusive item, this shredder is part of the company’s 100% satisfaction guarantee. The additional cost of the shredder for non-Costco members is only $4 (at this writing).

Flaws but not dealbreakers

• The Royal 14MC’s 4.5-gallon bin is slightly smaller than those of other shredders that we looked at, including the Aurora AU120MA’s 5-gallon wastebasket and the Bonsen ShredPro-Model S3106’s 5.3-gallon bin. Still, 4.5 gallons is about a third of a tall kitchen garbage bag, so it offers plenty of room for most people’s needs.
• The attractive white bin’s window is smaller than those on most other shredder bins, which makes it not very useful. The bin-full warning light will force you to empty the shredder anyway once it’s about three-quarters full.
• Because this model has no bin-open or bin-ajar warning, you need to make sure that you push the bin in completely after emptying it.

The Aurora AU120MA 120-Sheet Auto Feed Micro-Cut Paper Shredder is a game changer for people with high-volume shredding needs, thanks to its high-capacity automatic feeder.

It offers hands-free shredding of up to 10 times more paper than our top pick can handle. This shredder can tear through up to 120 sheets in about 90 seconds when you use the auto-feed tray. The 5-gallon bin has enough capacity for you to do that two more times—and also shred handfuls of paper through the 10-sheet manual feeder—before you need to empty it.

By running that test two more times (a total of 1,080 sheets) in quick succession, we were able to force this shredder into cooldown mode, which requires a 45-minute timeout. If you need to shred 1,000 sheets or more in one day, it’s best to look into commercial paper shredders, but for most people the Aurora AU120MA is more than capable enough.

It’s easy to operate. Like our top pick from Royal, the Aurora AU120MA has reverse and forward push buttons to help clear jams, but it goes a step further with a jam-clearing function that automatically puts the gears in reverse if the machine detects that you’ve overloaded the manual feeder.

When you’re using the auto feed, make sure that all the papers are in a uniform stack; when we tried with a mix of folded and unfolded sheets, the shredder took the unfolded ones and left the others in the tray.

The LED indicators are clear and helpful. The power button, though, is set a bit farther down the back of the shredder than on our top pick, so it’s harder to reach. This could be a good thing if you have pets or children.

It’s the quietest shredder we tested. The Aurora AU120MA tore through paper quietly, running at noise levels between 58 and 62 decibels in our tests. It isn’t silent, but it isn’t likely to wake sleeping pets or people in adjacent rooms.

It has a generous warranty. The manufacturer warrants the cutting cylinders for five years, in addition to the standard one-year warranty for other parts of the shredder.

If you need to shred CDs or DVDs, or if the Royal 14MC is out of stock: The Amazon Basics 8-Sheet Micro Cut Paper Shredder, CD, and Credit Card Shredder is a fine option. A former pick, this model can handle a few bank or credit card statements or single CDs or DVDs at a time, and in our tests it ran without jamming or overheating. However, the gears can spin unnecessarily for almost a minute more after you pass sheets through the feeder, and the 4-gallon bin is on the small side.

If you want to shred paper into even tinier bits: Check out the Bonsen ShredPro Model S3106. This model, which has a P5 security level, produced the tiniest shreds among the models we tested: about as wide as a strand of spaghetti versus the two-spaghetti-strands width of our picks’ output. But with that higher security come inconveniences: This Bonsen shredder produced a lot of dust along with the paper shreds, and many of the shreds overflowed past the back and bottom of the bin when we emptied it. The unit we tested also randomly whirred on its own after shredding a batch of paper.

If you really want a small shredder that costs closer to $50: The Fellowes LX41-DB 8-Sheet Micro-Cut Paper Shredder is about the size of a bathroom wastebasket. Unlike our previous budget pick, the Amazon Basics 6-Sheet Micro Cut Paper Shredder, this Fellowes model has a safety lock that prevents the machine from running; basically, it functions like an on/off switch. The lift-up lid is cumbersome and messy, and it can cause injury if you’re not careful about the exposed blades. This shredder is also the loudest of the models we tested.

Whichever shredder you use, be sure to follow the manufacturer’s guidelines regarding what you should and should not shred, as well as how many pages to feed at a time. Overfeeding the shredder could quickly wear down the blades, motor, and other parts.

To keep your shredder running smoothly, manufacturers recommend regularly oiling the blades. Advice on which oil to use varies by manufacturer, but shredder sharpening and lubricant sheets are a simple, inexpensive option that should work for any model.

If a shredder overheats or malfunctions, it could be a safety hazard. If your machine doesn’t turn off automatically when it exceeds its maximum run time, or if you notice that it’s overheating, unplug it and let it cool off for at least 30 minutes.

For the utmost safety—especially if kids are nearby—it’s best to leave your shredder unplugged when you aren’t using it, or at least turn it to the off position rather than the auto setting.

This is not a comprehensive list of models we have tested. Specifically, it does not include any cross-cut models, since we no longer recommend them, and we have removed any discontinued models as well.

We tested two units of the Amazon Basics 12-Sheet Micro Cut Shredder, a former pick, but both had issues. One came with a mysterious broken plastic part and gave us a bin-full warning when it was empty, so it was inoperable. The other produced a burning smell and a weird whistling sound during shredding.

Like many cheap shredders, the Aurora AU870MA High-Security 8-Sheet Micro-Cut Paper and Credit Card Shredder has an inconvenient lift-up top. Its wastebasket is flimsier than that of other shredders, and the design tapers at the bottom, which makes it easier to knock over. Its shredding slot is also curved on the left side, which in our experience made feeding it more difficult.

The Aurora AU1210MA 12-Sheet Micro-Cut Paper and CD/Credit Card Shredder is another model we liked, but it typically costs almost as much as our upgrade pick, its 120-sheet auto-feed sibling. The AU120MA is a better value and easier to use.

Similar to our upgrade pick, the Fellowes AutoMax 100MA has an automatic feeder. It’s much more expensive, however, and it has a lower, 100-sheet capacity. Most important, the narrow auto feed was difficult to use in our tests—we had a hard time shoving even 10 sheets into the flip-up tray. The manual feeder gave us false jam warnings, too.

This article was edited by Ben Keough and Erica Ogg.