How to Enable & Disable Recycle Bin Auto-Deletion on Windows 10?

Where Did Deleted Files Go?

If you want to delete a file on your Windows 10 computer, you can right-click on it and select Delete from the context menu. Then, you will find that that file disappears from its original location. Where is the deleted file? It is removed to the Recycle Bin. If you are regretful, you can access the Recycle Bin to restore it.

But sometimes, you may find that your Recycle Bin is automatically deleting files. This can cause an issue: when you want to restore a file from Recycle Bin, you find that the Recycle Bin is empty or you can’t find your needed files there.

Why is my Recycle Bin empty? You will ask this question. It is quite possible that the Storage Sense feature works to empty the Recycle Bin within some days to free up disk space. How to stop Recycle Bin automatically deleting files? In this post, we will show you a guide.

How to Disable Recycle Bin Auto-Deletion?

You can follow this guide to stop Windows from automatically emptying your Recycle Bin:

1. Click Start and then go to Settings. You can also press Win+I to directly open Settings.

2. Go to System.

3. Switch to Storage from the left menu.

4. Turn off the button for Storage Sense can automatically free up space by getting rid of files you don’t need, like temporary files and content in your Recycle if you want to disable Recycle Bin auto-deletion. Here if you want to enable Recycle Bin auto-deletion, you need to turn it on.

5. If you want to make some further changes for Storage Sense, you can click Configure Storage Sense or run it now to continue, and then you will see the following interface. The default setting for Run Storage Sense is During low free disk space. You can also set it as Every day, Every week, or Every month according to your requirements.

6. Scroll down to the Temporary Files section ad you will find that Delete files in my recycle bin if they have been there for over is set as over 30 days. If you want to disable Recycle Bin auto-deletion, you will need to change it to Never.

After these settings, Windows will not automatically delete files in Recycle Bin.

[Solved!] Skip Recycle Bin for Deleting Files on Windows 10

In this post, we will show you how to skip Recycle Bin for deleting files on Windows 10 by using the corresponding shortcut keys and modifying settings.

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How to Recover Permanently Deleted Files?

If you can’t find your deleted files in Recycle Bin, it means that they are permanently deleted. If these files are important for you, how to get them back? You need to use a free file recovery tool. You can try MiniTool Power Data Recovery, which is specially designed to restore your lost and deleted files that are not corrupted or overwritten by new data.

This software has a trial edition and you can press the following button to get it.

MiniTool Power Data Recovery TrialClick to Download100%Clean & Safe

After downloading and installing this software on your PC, you can open it, select the drive that has contained the deleted files you want to restore to scan, and then go to see whether you can find your needed files from the scan result.

If this software can find the files you want to recover, you can upgrade it to a full edition and then check your needed files to recover. For a personal user, the Personal Ultimate edition can fully meet the requirements.

Bottom Line

Now you should know how to stop Windows from automatically emptying your Recycle Bin and vice versa. Should you have any related issues, you can let us know in the comment.