How to change the recycle bin behavior

This article will show you how to change the default behavior of the recycle bin and save space on Hard disk.

It may or may not work on Windows Vista or Windows 7

Here’s how:

To personalize the Recycle Bin you need to right click with the mouse button for the shortcut menu to open. Once this menu has been opened, click properties. A screen like the one below will open.

Deleting items without sending them to the Recycle Bin

·         Open the Recycle Bin window with the mouse right click on the screen to open the shortcut menu.

·         Select Properties.

·         On the properties window we can see different tabs. The tab labeled global allows us to apply the changes to all the units at the same time as long as you have the same configuration for all.

·         We also see a tab for each unit; these tabs allow us to customize the space reserved for the recycle bin in each unit.

·         On the tab Global select option Use one setting for all drives.

·         Check the box Do not move files to the Recycle Bin. Remove files immediately when deleted.

·         If you do not want the window asking you if you are sure you want to delete the file or folder each time that you delete something, deactivate the option Display delete confirmation dialog.

Personalize the space reserved for the Recycle Bin

There are two ways to personalize the space reserved for the Recycle Bin .

One is to do it in a generic way and the other is to do it unit by unit. This last one is usually used when the difference of free space of the units is rather large. 

For example, when there is one almost full and another almost empty.

Before choosing the method to follow we need to look at the size of the units to know how much free space we have. To do this, from the Windows Explorer, simply right click on one of the units and select properties, and the total space (Capacity) of the unit and the free space will appear. 

A graph will accompany this information to show you the percentages of free and used space.

How to personalize the space reserved for all of the units at the same time.

Open the Recycle Bin window.

Right click on the window to open the shortcut menu.

Select Properties.

From the tab Global select Use one configuration for all the units.

Move the bar that appears to the right if you want to increase the space reserved for the Recycle Bin and to the left to decrease it. 

The space is measured in percentages.

How to personalize the space reserved unit by unit.

Select the option Configure drives independently.

Select the tab of the unit you want to modify and move the size indicator to the right to increase and to the left to decrease.

When reserving space for the Recycle Bin you will have to keep in mind how much free space is available. If you use too much space for the Recycle Bin , it will be space that you will be losing on the hard disk. However, if you reserve too little space and the Recycle Bin is full, any document from that point that is deleted will not go to the Recycle Bin , but will be completely lost.

When you delete a document and you have the option show window to confirm on, you will know if the element you are deleting is going to the Recycle Bin or is being completely deleted.


It may or may not work on Windows Vista or Windows 7