Properties of the Recycle Bin

Properties of the Recycle Bin

The properties of the Recycle Bin might not concern you as much if you have a very large hard drive. Hard drives with very large storage capacity are becoming more affordable. However, many people still use relatively small hard drives with limited storage space and this information could be very beneficial for them.

I would even venture to say that it truly does not matter how much space you have on your hard drive, the Recycle Bin will come into play at one time or another.

Files are deleted on purpose or by accident. The amount of space you allow for your Recycle Bin can make the difference between being able to retrieve those files or not. If you have allowed adequate space for the Recycle Bin you can retrieve a file that was accidentally deleted. To retrieve a deleted file, open the Recycle Bin, locate the file deleted, click on the file you want to undelete and from the File Menu, click Restore.

Deleted documents or files will remain in the Recycle Bin until you clean out the Recycle Bin or until Windows claims that space for newly deleted files.

Windows automatically sets aside 10% of your hard drive as storage space for the files or folders that are deleted and sent to the Recycle Bin. This means that if you have a 1000 MB hard drive, then 100 MB will be used by the Recycle Bin.

If your hard drive is low on space and you do not create very large documents, you might want to reduce the size of the Recycle Bin and increase the available space on your hard drive.

To set the properties of the Recycle Bin, right click the Recycle Bin icon on your desktop and click on Properties.The Recycle Bin dialogue box will open up.

The top radio button will allow you to configure each of your hard drive separately. The second radio button creates one rule for all your drives. You will notice an option to delete files without storing them in the Recycle Bin. There is a security feature that will ask you to confirm the deletion. The slider control allows you to set the amount of space you want reserved for the Recycle bin. By moving the slider control you can either reduce or increase the size of the Recycle Bin. There is also a check box that you can check or uncheck to prevent or activate the delete confirmation message from appearing at deletion time.

By using these different controls, you can set your Recycle Bin according to your needs and according to the size of your hard drive. If you work on smaller documents you might want to reduce the size of the Recycle Bin. If, on the other hand, you work on database, video or graphic files, it might be a good idea to increase the size of your Recycle Bin to accommodate an accidental deletion.

You need to weigh your need for hard drive space and the safeguarding of accidental deletion of files. Remember, if your Recycle Bin is full, Windows will delete older deleted files to make room for newly deleted files in the Recycle Bin.

To get more information about the Recycle Bin, go to Online Help. Click the Start button, click Help, click Search and type in Recycle Bin. You will then be able to read about shortcuts, how to retrieve deleted files and much more.