We answer: What is Recycle Bin in Windows 10 and how to use it?

1. Download Restoro PC Repair Tool that comes with Patented Technologies (patent available here).
2. Click Start Scan to find Windows issues that could be causing PC problems.
3. Click Repair All to fix issues affecting your computer’s security and performance

• Restoro has been downloaded by 0 readers this month.

Recycle Bin has been a part of Windows since the earliest versions, and even though the look of Recycle Bin might have changed over the years, its functionality remained the same on Windows 10. Since Recycle Bin is a fundamental tool of Windows 10 and all other versions of Windows, we decided to make an in-depth analysis of this tool.

What is Recycle Bin and how does it work on Windows 10?

As previously mentioned, Recycle Bin isn’t a new feature of Windows 10, and it works the same as it did in previous versions of Windows. When you delete a certain file, the file itself isn’t actually deleted from your hard drive, instead it’s moved to your Recycle Bin, and even if you can’t use it while it’s located in Recycle Bin, you can easily restore it to the original location at any time.

Since moving the files to Recycle Bin doesn’t actually delete them, they will still occupy the same space on your hard drive. If you want to permanently delete a file or folder from your PC, you can do that by following these steps:

1. Locate the file you wish to remove and right click it.
2. Press and hold Shift on your keyboard and choose Delete from the menu.
   
3. You should see a window asking if you want to permanently remove this file or folder.
   
4. Click Yes to permanently remove a file.

If you use this method, your files won’t be available in Recycle Bin so you won’t be able to restore them, so keep that in mind. Alternatively, you can delete individual files from Recycle Bin in order to permanently remove them. To do that, follow these steps:

1. Open Recycle Bin.
2. Locate the file you wish to remove and right click it. Choose Delete from the menu.
   
3. You should see the confirmation dialog, click Yes to permanently remove that specific file or folder.
   

If you wish to delete all files and folders permanently from Recycle Bin you can do the following:

1. Right click Recycle Bin and choose Empty Recycle Bin. When the confirmation dialog appears click Yes.
   
2. Optional: You can also delete all files simply by opening Recycle Bin, right clicking the empty space and choosing Empty Recycle Bin from the menu.
   

• READ ALSO: Quick Tip: Restore Deleted Files From OneDrive

Run a System Scan to discover potential errors

Now when you know how to permanently delete files from Recycle Bin, let’s see how you can restore them. In order to restore a certain file to its original location, you need to do the following:

1. Open Recycle Bin and locate the file you wish to restore.
2. Right click the file and choose Restore from the menu.
   
3. Optional: You can also select the file you wish to restore, click the Manage menu and choose Restore the selected items. If you wish, you can also restore all the files from the Recycle Bin by selecting the Restore all items from the Manage menu.
   

As previously mentioned, files in Recycle Bin aren’t deleted from your computer and they are still taking certain amount of space. If you want to increase the amount of space that Recycle Bin uses for each hard drive partition, you can do that by following these steps:

1. Right click Recycle Bin icon and click on Properties.
   
2. When Properties window opens, you can select how much space will Recycle Bin use from each partition by changing the Maximum size(MB) value.
   

If you don’t wish to store deleted files in Recycle Bin, you have the option to permanently delete them without moving them to the Recycle Bin. Bear in mind that this option will permanently delete your files, and by default this option doesn’t use a confirmation dialog, so be extremely careful if you’re going to use it. To enable this option, do the following:

1. Open Recycle Bin Properties.
2. Select your hard drive partition and select Don’t move files to the Recycle Bin. Remove files immediately when deleted. Bear in mind that you can choose files from one partition to be permanently deleted, while files from a different partition can be set to move to Recycle Bin when you choose the Delete option.
   
3. Notice: By default, Windows 10 doesn’t give you a confirmation message when you choose to delete a certain file or folder, so if you enable option to permanently delete files without moving them to Recycle Bin, you might accidentally remove important files. To prevent this from happening check the Display delete confirmation dialog option.
   
4. Click Apply and OK to save changes.

Since every file moved to the Recycle Bin is still taking space on your hard drive, it’s always a good idea to clean your Recycle Bin from time to time in order to save some space, and if you want to permanently delete a file from your PC, you can do it by following one of the several methods that we mentioned above.

Recycle Bin is a key component of every Windows operating system, therefore it’s important that you know how to use it properly, and we hope that our guide thought you a thing or two about Recycle Bin.

Recycle Bin Tricks and Tips for Windows 10

The Recycle Bin in Windows! It’s there, we need it, but we hardly ever notice it. Some of us don’t even bother to empty it, letting Windows do the job once it starts overflowing. Well, let’s change that and let’s take a closer look at it today! Let’s see how it works and how we can get the best out of it in Windows 10/8.1/7.

Windows Recycle Bin Tricks and Tips

The Recycle Bin is just that! It lets you recycle deleted items. Once you delete any file or folder from the Windows File Explorer, it is moved and placed into this bin. It is not deleted as such.

To delete an item, you right-click on it and select Delete. This will move the file or folder to the Recycle Bin. If you press the Shift key and Delete, then the item will not be moved into the Recycle Bin. It will be directly deleted permanently.

1] Restore deleted items

If you need to get back any item you may have deleted by mistake, you can open the Recycle Bin, search for the item, right-click on it and click Restore. The item will be moved back to the location from when it was deleted by you.

If you wish to permanently delete it, you can simply right-click the item in the Bin and click Delete.

To empty all the items in the Recycle Bin, you may right-click the Recycle Bin desktop icon and select Empty Recycle Bin. If you have the explorer ribbon showing, then under Manage, you can select Empty Recycle Bin or Restore item/s. This will empty the Bin only for that User. But if you wish, you can also empty the Recycle Bins of all users using the Command Line.

If by mistake you click Delete instead of Empty Recycle Bin – well the Recycle Bin icon will just disappear from your Desktop. In this case, you will have to restore the Recycle Bin icon.

2] Recycle Bin location

To see the location of the Recycle Bin on your Windows computer, you will have to first show protected operating system files via the Control Panel, Folder Options applet. Once you have done that, open your C Drive. You will see the $Recycle.Bin folder. Open it, and you will see the Recycle Bin. It is the same for other drives too.

3] Change Recycle Bin size

The Recycle Bin size calculations are based on the user’s disk quota and not the disk size. In Windows XP, the default Recycle Bin was 10% of the user’s quota on the volume. In later versions of Windows, the default size is 10% of the first 40GB of quota, and 5% of any quota above which is above 40GB.

To change its capacity, right-click on the Recycle Bin icon > Properties. Here, under the General tab, you can set the maximum size for your Recycle Bin.

If you wish, you can also change the size and settings on a per-folder basis.

4] Tweak Recycle Bin behavior

Right-Click on the Recycle Bin icon and select Properties. Here you will be able to changes a few of its settings. As I mentioned, each Drive has its own Recycle Bin. Select the Drive.

1. You will then be able to decide the maximum size of the Bin. This means that if the items in the Bin exceed this number, then Windows will start deleting items on a First-In-First-Out (FIFO) basis. You can increase the size of Recycle Bin if you feel.
2. If you do not wish to move files to the Bin, you can set it to directly remove files when deleted. But we would not advise you to set this option. What if you needed to restore some deleted items!?
3. Most of us do not like the delete confirmation box. You can choose to have it displayed or not here. You can enable or disable this Delete Confirmation Box

5] Show Hide Recycle Bin from Desktop

Right-click on the Desktop > Personalization. From the left side click on the Change desktop icons link. Select the checkboxes for the icons you wish to show.

6] Rename Recycle Bin

Right-click the Bin icon and select Rename. It is so simple! But to rename it for all the users, you will have to tweak the Windows Registry.

7] Change Recycle Bin icons

You may have noticed that the Bin displays two different icons, one when it’s empty and the other when it has some files or folders. You can change these icons if you wish, customize the appearance of the Recycle Bin by changing one or both of these icons, via the Control Panel > Personalization > Change desktop icons link.

But we have noticed that in many cases when you revert them back to defaults, the Recycle Bin icon does not refresh automatically. As such, I’d recommend you not do this.

8] Count the number of items in the Recycle Bin

To see how many items are there in the Recycle Bin:

1. Open Recycle Bin
2. Select one item
3. Press Ctrl+A
4. Look in the bottom left corner.
5. You will see the number there.

9] Recycle Bin recovery software

If you need to recover or undelete files that you permanently deleted even from the Bin, then you will need to use some good free data recovery software like Recuva. As soon as you realize you have deleted some files and wish to recover them, stop using the computer and install and run a file undelete software.

Did I miss any? Oh yes – you can do the following too!

1. Display Recycle Bin in This PC or Computer folder
2. Create a Recycle Bin for USB Drive & Removable Media
3. Add Recycle Bin To Taskbar
4. Access the Recycle Bin from the Windows taskbar notification area.

And what if your Bin does not function the way it should? See this post, if your Recycle Bin were to ever get corrupted.

Date: December 5, 2019 Tags: Recycle Bin, Tricks

About $Recycle.bin, Recycler and System Volume Information Folders in Windows

As you might expect, there are many files and folders hidden away in Windows that deal with important tasks such as keeping the system running or allowing certain features to function. A couple of examples of this are Hiberfil.sys and Pagefile.sys that reside in the root of your C drive.

You have to enable the show hidden files and protected operating system files settings in Control Panel Folder Options for these and other files to become viewable. More folders in the root of C which also become visible after unhiding are $Recycle.bin or Recycler and System Volume Information. But just what are these folders for?

The first thing about hidden files and folders in general is that they’re usually not made visible for a reason, which is often a sign that you’re not supposed to play around with them. But also, like many things in Windows, if something isn’t behaving correctly or the behaviour looks odd, you might want to have a closer look.

So what are the $Recycle.bin, Recycler and System Volume Information folders all about?

The System Volume Information Folder

The System Volume Information folder is a hidden folder in the root of your C drive that the Windows System Restore tool uses to store its information and restore points. It’s not just System Restore data that gets stored in here though and the Windows Indexing Service uses it to store search databases, the Volume Shadow Copy Service creates live system backup data and also Distributed Link Tracking stores database information to repair shortcuts and linked documents. Check Disk logs are also saved here.

There will actually be a System Volume Information folder created on every partition on your computer, including external hard drives and even sometimes flash drives. Because it’s the storage location for System Restore points, if System Restore backs up files that are infected with viruses or other malware, it becomes a problem. Most antivirus software cannot delete viruses from System Volume Information because it’s a highly protected folder. To verify this yourself, simply double click on the folder and you will receive an error “C:\System Volume Information is not accessible. Access is denied”.

What you need to do is either give the appropriate permissions to the currently logged on user for full access to the System Volume Information folder, or delete all the previously created restore points to remove any viruses attached to them. Here we show you both methods.

Turning off System Restore

Turning off System Restore completely will remove all your restore points from the System Volume Information folder, removing anything malicious attached to them. After turning System Restore off, restart your computer and then re-enable it again once your system is free of viruses. It will then create a new and clean restore point. By default, System Restore is automatically turned on in all versions of Windows that have it, and you can turn it off from:

1. Go to Control Panel -> System and click on System Protection (XP users simply click the System Restore tab)

2a. For Windows XP, simply click the “Turn off System Restore” box and press OK. You can also adjust the percentage of the drive System Restore can occupy.

2b. For Windows Vista and above the process is slightly more complicated. Look in the list of available drives, click on any that have Protection set to On and press the Configure button. Then select “Turn off system protection” and click OK. Users just wanting to empty all restore points to free up some space, simply click on Delete.

To free up space by deleting restore points you can also use a utility like the popular CCleaner although it won’t delete all restore points and will leave the most recent point in tact.

Accessing the System Volume Information Folder

As mentioned earlier, the System Volume Information folder is protected by Windows and you can’t simply open it up and look at the contents because an access denied error message will popup. However, it is possible to gain access by setting the appropriate permissions for the folder, here’s the easy way to do it.

Because Windows XP deals differently with accessing folder security permissions depending on whether you’re using Home or Professional, the easiest solution is to use a context menu shortcut that works on both with a single click.

1. Download Take Ownership XP and extract the zip file.

2. Copy Subinacl.exe, TakeOwnershipFile.cmd and TakeOwnershipDir.cmd to your C:\Windows folder, then double click on Install_Take_Ownership_XP.reg to install the menu entry into the registry. SubInACL is a Microsoft utility to change user security for files, registry keys and services.

3. Now, go to the System Volume Information folder, right click on it and select “Take Ownership” from the menu.

You should be able to enter the folder and have a look around without receiving the error. To remove Take Ownership again, run Remove_Take_Ownership_XP.reg and delete the 3 files from the Windows folder. It’s still not possible or recommended to start deleting stuff from System Volume Information, more on that later.

For Windows Vista and above

This method also uses a Take Ownership context menu shortcut but is even easier to install as newer operating systems have a built in tool called Takedown.

1. Download Take Ownership and run the InstallTakeOwnership.reg inside the zip file to import the context menu shortcut.

2. Right click on System Volume Information and select “Take Ownership”, then you can get into the folder straight away.