Recycle Bin Automatically Deleting Files

By Dave Taylor

The Question: This is weird. Without me changing anything that I can recall, the Trash on my Windows 7 laptop is now automatically and instantly deleting any files I drag into it, rather than “archiving” the contents until I explicitly delete things. I’ve lost two things already because I went back to pull them out of the Trash just to find it empty. What’s changed and how the heck do I fix it??

Dave’s Answer:

The way that trash / recycle bins on modern computer systems are implemented, they seem to be no more than a folder with a special icon. Drag things into the Trash and it’ll just sit there until you’re ready to either really axe ‘em or want to recover them. In fact, I sometimes store files in the Trash for a day or two until I’m sure one of my online services did what I queued it up to do. No worries.

Until it doesn’t work that way!

Turns out that in Windows you can actually change your Trash from being a storage bin that you can access later to something more akin to a shredder. Drop something in and that’s it. Gone. Kaput. Sayonara.

Fortunately, it’s easy to change back, because it sure sounds like that’s what has happened to your system.

Before I show you, though, let me illustrate a few pointers to identify if this is happening on your own computer. First off, when you drag a file onto the Trash, here’s what you see, as usual:

But the window that shows up immediately afterwards gives you a clue that somethings’ different. Read it carefully:

“permanently delete”? Sounds serious. And it is.

In fact, say “Yes” and the Trashcan stays empty!

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About Ask Dave Taylor

PC Pitstop is proud to welcome Dave Taylor as a guest contributor. Dave splits time between free tech support on AskDaveTaylor, film reviews on the popular DaveOnFilm.com site, parenting discussions on Go Fatherhood and business, marketing and industry analysis at The Business Blog@ Intuitive.com. Along with a zillion other things.

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