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There are situations where you need to reset the Recycle Bin store folder to fix problems such as Recycle Bin not showing the files that have been deleted, or you’re unable to completely empty the Recycle Bin. Each drive has a hidden and protected folder named $Recycle.bin, which is where the Recycle Bin stores files and folders that you (and other users in the PC) delete. Windows creates a fresh $Recycle.bin folder automatically after you reset it.
Fixing a corrupt Recycle Bin
IMPORTANT: The following procedure permanently deletes all files and folders which are already in the Recycle Bin (from all user accounts in the system) and cannot be recovered.
1. Open an elevated Command Prompt window. To open an elevated Command Prompt, click Start, click All Programs, click Accessories, right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as administrator.
2. Type the following command and press ENTER:
(This clears out the $Recycle.bin folder for the C:\ drive. You may have to do this for each hard disk partition in your system.)
3. Type exit to close the Command Prompt window.
Editor’s note: The above method only fixes Recycle Bin folder corruption if any. Using the above method as an attempt to fix any cosmetic problems (eg. Recycle Bin showing incorrect icon) with the Recycle Bin does not help.
See Also
- Recycle Bin icon does not refresh automatically
- Hide the "Delete" command from Recycle Bin context menu
- Restore the Recycle bin icon that has been accidentally deleted
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Found this fix on other sites but no one mentioned to run as an administrator. Thank you. Worked perfectly.
Hi. All the above solutions didn’t worked for me. I still have an ALWAYS FULL recycle.bon icon and I always have to wait 15 minutes to see the white bat on top becoming green and always without showing anything: more overe the command to empty recycle.bin doesn’t work… can someone help me ? Thanks
Great Help!! It worked great in C drive but in D drive it was saying that the folder was not empty, when I searched for hidden files there was a recyclebin file in D, I just erased it and started again. Now everything works fine :)
thanks a lot, worked like a charm :)
access denied ? PLease advise
I use CC Cleaner to clear my computer out daily, but today it started getting stuck on a file in C:\$recycle.bin.
I’ve left it nearly an hour and its just stuck on removing a file from that location.
I tried the above but I get an error – Access is denied! Can anyone help?
Did not work,recycle bin still not storing deleted items.
tnx a lot.. it really helped me…. ^^
sobrang thanks!!!