How to edit Recycle Bin settings on Windows 11 PC

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This tip is about the how to edit Recycle Bin settings on Windows 11 PC. So read this free guide, How to edit Recycle Bin settings on Windows 11 PC step by step. If you have query related to same article you may contact us.

How to edit Recycle Bin settings on Windows 11 PC – Guide

In Microsoft Windows operating systems, the Recycle Bin is an area used to temporarily store deleted files that are not permanently deleted. On a Windows PC, each partition has its own Recycle Bin settings, stored in a hidden system folder “$RECYCLE.BIN”. If you want to see the folder, you must first show hidden items in File Explorer. Then you can go to the root of a partition and scroll down to find the folder. Alternatively, you can browse the folder on the partition. Normally, when you delete a file, it is moved to Recycle Bin and you can restore the file to its original location if needed.

However, the recycle bin can only store limited files. When the Recycle Bin storage runs out, some files will be removed automatically, which means you won’t be able to restore the removed files from Recycle Bin. The only problem is that files in the recycle bin are not kept forever. Depending on the size of the drive (partition), Windows 11 reserves a small percentage to store deleted files. As the disk space fills up the system will start removing the oldest files to free up up space for files, limiting the number of files you can retrieve.

How to edit Recycle Bin settings in Windows 11 PC

Changing the recycle bin storage size

If you want to increase or decrease the recycle bin storage space, follow these steps.

First, locate the Recycle Bin icon on the desktop. If you don’t find any icons on the desktop, right-click in the open space on the desktop and hover over the preview option in the context menu. A new expanded context menu will appear on the screen. Select ‘Show desktop icons’ from there.

Once done, go to the trash can icon.

After that, right-click on the icon. Now a context menu will appear on the screen. Select the ‘Properties’ option from the menu.

Now a pop-up Recycle Bin properties window will appear on the screen. In the ‘General’ tab of the window, you will find two sections. The first is a list of all drives and the available trash space on each drive. The second section is to configure the drive/location settings of the selected recycle bin.

If your computer system has multiple hard drives, each of them has its own Recycle Bin settings. The settings are stored as a hidden system folder called “$RECYCLE.BIN” at the root of each volume.

Now, in the first section, choose which recycle bin location you want to configure.

Then go to the second section which is ‘Selected Location Settings’ and select the first option ‘Custom Size’. Specify the maximum size of the recycle bin in the text box next to the ‘Maximum Size’ option.

Keep in mind that you must specify the storage space in megabytes. For example, if you want to assign a space of 120 GB, you need to specify 15,000 MB in the text box.

After assigning the space as per your needs, click ‘OK’ to save the changes.

Disabling Recycle Bin for a drive to permanently delete files

If you keep your junk files on a separate drive and don’t want them up space in Recycle Bin when you delete stuff from this drive, so you can easily disable recycle bin location for that drive so that files are never stored in recycle bin after deletion and permanently deleted from your PC.

First, locate the recycle bin application icon on the desktop, right-click on it and select the ‘Properties’ option from the context menu.

a pop-up window with trash properties will appear on the screen. In the ‘General’ tab of the window, you will find two sections.

In the first section, choose which recycle bin location you want to configure.

After that select the second option from the ‘Settings for selected location’ section which is “Do not move files to trash. Remove files immediately when deleted.”

Press ‘OK’ button. Now, whenever you delete a file from the selected drive, it will skip the recycle bin and be permanently deleted from your PC.

At the final, there is an option that allows you to have a confirmation dialog before deleting something. When you delete something by accident, this dialog will come to the rescue.

To enable the confirmation dialog before permanently deleting files, select the checkbox next to the ‘Display Delete Confirmation Dialog’ option and click ‘OK’ to save the changes.

If you want to check whether this option works or not, try deleting a file from the custom location and you will see the pop-up confirmation dialog.up on the screen asking if you really want to delete the file/folder, and this is how you will know if this option works. Select ‘yes’ if you want to delete or no if you don’t.

Final note

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