Windows – Why is the Windows 8 recycle bin using more space than it is allocated

recycle-binwindows 8

I ran WinDirStat to scan the contents of my hard drive. I was surprised to see that the $RECYCLE.BIN folder on my D: drive takes 26 GB of space. I emptied the recycle bin, refreshed the folder in WinDirStat, but it still takes 26 GB of space.

I reduced the Maximum size of the recycle bin for this drive to 10000 MB for the main user of this computer, and disabled the recycle bin for the other user, and refreshed the folder in WinDirStat, but it still takes 26 GB of space.

I ran (in an elevated window) rd /s D:\$Recycle.bin, and refreshed the folder in WinDirStat, and finally it became empty.

  • Why was it taking up space even after I emptied it?
  • Why was it taking more space (26 GB) than the maximum allowed amount (10 GB)?

Update: After six months of using Windows (no re-install and no changes of settings related to the Recycle Bin) I used WinDirStat to check how big D:\$RECYCLE.BIN has become. It is now 29 GB. In Recycle Bin Properties, I select drive D, and it is still a custom maximum size (10000 MB).

Best Answer

  • Why was it taking up space even after I emptied it?
  • Why was it taking more space (26 GB) than the maximum allowed amount (10 GB)?

I've seen situations where a $Recycle.bin folder created by another installation of Windows will not be recognized by your current installation of Windows. In that case, the contents of that folder will not be shown in your Recycle Bin view.

Hence, emptying your Recycle Bin will not delete the files in that $Recycle.bin folder. This also means the contents of this folder will not count towards the quota of your Recycle Bin view, as it is just a regular folder to Windows, not a special folder connected to your Recycle Bin view.

If I'm sure I don't need to recover anything from the $Recycle.bin folder I'll just delete the whole folder permanently. Windows will automatically create a new folder if necessary.

This also happens with the .Trashes folder created by Mac OS X, although all OS X installations should be able to show its contents in their Trash view regardless of the originating installation.

When viewing the drive contents in Windows, enabling the display of hidden files and folders will reveal the .Trashes folder, which may also occupy space on the disk if you had previously deleted files on the drive using Mac OS X.

As with the $Recycle.bin folder, I would permanently delete the .Trashes folder if I know there is nothing to recover from it too. Mac OS X will automatically create it again when you plug the drive into an Apple computer.

Tip: In Windows, you can press ShiftDelete to bypass the Recycle Bin and permanently delete the selected items. OS X does not have this function natively but you can find ways to do it.

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