Page 245 - Windows 10 May 2019 Update The Missing Manual: The Book That Should Have Been in the Box

Tip

You don’t have to put icons back into their original folders. By dragging them out of the Recycle
Bin window, you can put them back into any folder you like.

Emptying the Recycle Bin

While there’s an advantage to the Recycle Bin (you get to undo your

mistakes), there’s also a downside: The files in the Recycle Bin occupy as
much disk space as they did when they were stored in folders. Deleting files
doesn’t gain you disk space until you empty the Recycle Bin.

That’s why most people, sooner or later, follow up an icon’s journey to the
Recycle Bin with one of these cleanup operations:

Right-click the Recycle Bin icon, or a blank spot in the Recycle
Bin window, and choose Empty Recycle Bin from the shortcut

menu.

In the Recycle Bin window, click Empty Recycle Bin on the
Ribbon’s Recycle Bin Tools/Manage tab.

In the Recycle Bin window, highlight only the icons you want to
eliminate, and then press the Delete key. (Use this method when

you want to nuke only some of the Recycle Bin’s contents.)

Wait. When the Recycle Bin accumulates so much stuff that it

occupies a significant percentage of your hard drive space,
Windows empties it automatically, as described in the next section.

The first three of these procedures produce an “Are you sure?” message.

Auto-emptying the Recycle Bin

The Recycle Bin has two advantages over the physical trash can behind
your house: First, it never smells. Second, when it’s full, it can empty itself

automatically.