The Recycle Bin provides a safety net when deleting files or folders. When you delete any of these items from your hard disk, Windows places it in the Recycle Bin and the Recycle Bin icon changes from empty to full.
If you have multiple hard drives, partitions, or an external hard drive connected to your PC, each location will have its own $Recycle.Bin and Recycle Bin settings. Removable drives, such as USB flash drives and memory cards, will not have a Recycle Bin. Files deleted from removable drives are permanently deleted.
When you delete a file or folder in Windows, the item(s) get placed in the Recycle Bin by default until you empty the Recycle Bin to permanently delete them if you didn’t want to restore them.
However, permanently deleting a file or folder doesn’t secure delete them.
Secure Delete will delete and overwrite a file or folder to securely erase any data that exists in the unallocated portions of a disk for the deleted file or folder so it gone forever and cannot be recovered.
If you like, you can add Secure Delete to the Recycle Bin context menu that will secure erase all items (files and folders) in the Recycle Bin deleted from the “C:” drive for the current user.
The Secure Delete context menu will perform 3 passes to securely erase only the items in the Recycle Bin deleted from the “C:” drive for the current user. If you would prefer to have more passes, then please post a reply in this tutorial requesting it, and I’ll post an updated .reg file for it. If you would like to have the Recycle Bin of other drive letters included, then please post a reply in this tutorial requesting it, and I’ll post an updated .reg file for it.
This tutorial will show you how to add Secure Delete to the Recycle Bin context menu for all users in Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 10.
Starting with Windows 10 build 15014, Microsoft has added a new Automatically free up space with Storage Sense option in Storage Settings to automatically get rid of the files you don’t need to save you an extra step when low on disk space. Currently this is only supported for unused temporary files, files in your recycle bin over 30 days, and files in your Downloads folder that haven’t changed for over 30 days.
Starting with Windows 10 build 17720, Storage Sense can now turn itself on when your device is low on storage space. Once activated, Storage Sense will intelligently run whenever your device runs low on storage space and clear temporary files that your device and applications no longer need.Storage Sense looks for and will remove the following types of files:
When Storage Sense is turned on or enabled, it can delete files in the user’s Recycle Bin if they have been there for over a certain amount of days.
Starting with at least Windows 10 build 18282, you can now configure a group policy to specify when Storage Sense (if turned on or enabled) will delete files in the recycle bin for all users.
This tutorial will show you how to specify when Storage Sense will automatically delete files in the recycle bin for your account or all users in Windows 10.
The Recycle Bin provides a safety net when deleting files or folders. When you delete any of these items from a hard disk, Windows places it in the Recycle Bin and the Recycle Bin icon changes from empty to full.
If you have multiple hard drives, partitions, or an external hard drive connected to your PC, each location will have its own $Recycle.Bin and Recycle Bin settings. Removable drives, such as USB flash drives and memory cards, will not have a Recycle Bin. Files deleted from removable drives are permanently deleted.
Items in the Recycle Bin still take up hard disk space and can be undeleted or restored back to their original location. When the Recycle Bin of a drive reaches its maximum storage size, Windows will automatically permanently delete (empty) older files in the Recycle Bin location to accommodate the most recently deleted files and folders.
Each user account on the PC will have their own separate Recycle Bin, and will be referenced by their Security Identifier (SID) in each drive’s $Recycle.Bin.
When you manually empty the Recycle Bin, all files in the Recycle Bin will be permanently deleted to free up disk space.
This tutorial will show you how to add or remove the default Empty Recycle Bin context menu item of the Recycle Bin for all users in Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 10.
The Recycle Bin provides a safety net when deleting files or folders. When you delete any of these items from your hard disk, Windows places it in the Recycle Bin and the Recycle Bin icon changes from empty to full.
If you have multiple hard drives, partitions, or an external hard drive connected to your PC, each location will have its own $Recycle.Bin and Recycle Bin settings. Removable drives, such as USB flash drives and memory cards, will not have a Recycle Bin. Files deleted from removable drives are permanently deleted.
This tutorial will show you how to add or remove Properties from the Recycle Bin context menu for specific or all users in Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 10.
The Recycle Bin provides a safety net when deleting files or folders. When you delete any of these items from a hard disk, Windows places it in the Recycle Bin and the Recycle Bin icon changes from empty to full.
If you have multiple hard drives, partitions, or an external hard drive connected to your PC, each location will have its own $Recycle.Bin and Recycle Bin settings. Removable drives, such as USB flash drives and memory cards, will not have a Recycle Bin. Files deleted from removable drives are permanently deleted.
Each user account on the PC will have their own separate Recycle Bin, and will be referenced by their Security Identifier (SID) in each drive’s $Recycle.Bin.
Items in the Recycle Bin still take up hard disk space and can be undeleted or restored back to their original location. When the Recycle Bin of a drive reaches its maximum storage size, Windows will automatically permanently delete (empty) older files in the Recycle Bin location to accommodate the most recently deleted files and folders.
When you manually empty the Recycle Bin, all files in the Recycle Bin will be permanently deleted to free up disk space.
This tutorial will show you different ways on how to empty Recycle Bin for your account or all accounts in Windows 10.