ManagingYour Recycle Bin

The recycle bin is designed as a resource so that if you accidentally delete files, you can retrieve them again. However, in the interest of system performance, it should be cleaned out regularly.

No Confirmations

Every time you delete something, Windows asks you if you would really like to do it? If you find yourself shouting "YES, I wouldn't have hit delete if I didn't want to delete the stupid thing," then you may want to disable the deletion confirmation.

To do so, just right-click the Recycle bin, Properties and deselect the checkbox for "Display delete confirmation dialog box".

Recycle Size

By default, the Recycle Bin takes up 10% of your hard drive. If you have a 200 GB hard drive, Windows is setting aside 20 GB just for digital garbage.  A more realistic number is probably 1% on a drive that size (2 GB for recycle). This is where you gauge what you feel is realistic based upon the size of your hard drive and how much you want to keep in the trash.

You can also set the computer to bypass the recycle bin and just permanently delete files.  We do NOT recommend this. It's very easy to accidentally delete files, so the Recycle Bin can really come to the rescue.

If you have a file(s) that you would like to just permanently delete right away, press SHIFT and DELETE. It will be removed without making a stop at the recycle bin first.