Guide: Fix ‘Unable to Empty Recycle Bin in Windows 10’ Issue
Every time you press Delete button on your keyboard while a file or folder is selected, it will be moved to the Recycle Bin instead of being deleted from your computer. The Recycle Bin acts as a fail-safe situation in case you need to restore a file that you accidentally deleted. The problem occurs when you cannot empty the Recycle Bin. There can be many reasons behind it. Some users say that the option to empty the Recycle Bin is greyed out, while others report that the option is simply not there. Before we go any further, I will also share how to show or hide the Recycle Bin on your desktop as it is sometimes not visible making it difficult to empty the Recycle Bin or even recover files from it. Let’s start.
1. Show / hide trash on desktop
Press Windows Key + I. button on the keyboard to launch Settings and search for desktop icons. Click Themes and related settings.
The Themes tab contains the desktop icon settings. Click here.
Deselect all desktop icons here, click Apply and OK and reboot. Go back and select Recycle Bin to make it visible on the desktop again.
Check if you can now empty the Recycle Bin.
2. Restore default
Microsoft support says the problem can help restore the default desktop icons. To do this, go back to Settings and open the desktop icon settings like you did in the last step. Here, select Recycle Bin and click Restore Default.
Click on Apply and optionally on OK and check again.
3. Microsoft security scanner
This is a free tool developed in-house by Microsoft and can be downloaded from the link below. Download and run it on your computer. If it finds anything, follow the onscreen instructions to fix the Recycle Bin error. Since Microsoft Safety Scanner is a malware threat remover, I would recommend trying Malwarebytes. It is a third party program and the free version is good enough. Malwarebytes is even more powerful and can find threats that may have escaped Microsoft’s tool. Download Microsoft Safety Scanner Download Malwarebytes
4. Kill OneDrive
Are you using OneDrive on your computer with Windows 10? If yes then you can try to kill it as it is known to be responsible for the Recycle Bin error. To test, press Ctrl + Shift + Esc on your keyboard to launch Task Manager. Under the Processes tab you will find OneDrive. Right-click on it and select End Task.
Check again if you can now empty the Recycle Bin. If so, then you need to find an alternative to OneDrive. I highly recommend Google Drive, but you can choose it.
5. Clean boot
While not always necessary, performing a clean boot can help fix some errors such as the gray empty Recycle Bin option. To do this, press Windows key + R to open the Run prompt and type msconfig before pressing Enter.
On the Services tab, click Hide all Microsoft services and then select Disable all.
Now open Task Manager by clicking the link under the Startup tab.
Select each startup item in the list and disable it by right-clicking. Restart your computer and see if the problem is resolved. If so, then you know that one of the associated software or apps is the culprit. Minifying it takes a little time, but it’s easy. Enable the items one by one on the Startup tab in Task Manager and restart your computer to check if the problem occurs again. I know, time consuming and boring as hell.
Here’s a neat one trickSelect and enable 50% of processes at once and check whether you can empty the Recycle Bin or not. Testing half of it at a time eliminates the other half. Repeat the process with the remaining half and choose half again to remove the rest. So if you have 16 processes running, you go from 16 to 8 and then followed by 8 to 4 and so on. You end up limiting it to whoever is causing this problem.
6. Reset the recycle bin
Microsoft recommends that you reset your Recycle Bin to make it work properly. That’s easy enough. Press Windows key + X on your keyboard to reveal a hidden shortcut and select Command Prompt or PowerShell with Admin in parentheses.
Type the command below and hit Enter. Repeat the same command for every drive you have on your computer, replacing the letter ‘C’ with the respective drive letter. rd / s / q C: $ Recycle.bin
Restart your computer and it should be resolved.
7. Alternative method to empty the trash
If all else fails, here’s another way to empty the Recycle Bin until you focus on the problem. Press Windows key + I to launch Settings and look for Delete temporary files.
Your system will run a scan which will take a minute or two. When you’re done, you’ll find the option to Empty Trash, among other things. Select it and you can select or deselect other items as needed.
Click Delete Files and you’re done. As you can see, this is a handy shortcut that you can use to clean up up various types of junk files from your computer. While that may not fix the error, it still gets the job done and only takes a few clicks.
Take out the trash
House cleaning is important. The amount of digital junk we can accumulate in our computer’s storage over a period of time can be astounding. Not to mention that not emptying the Recycle Bin can affect the performance of your PC. One of the above methods should fix the problem. The next up: Looking for an advanced tool to manage your Recycle Bin files. Here’s an in-depth one guide for RecycleBinEx.
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