Repairing a Corrupted Recycle Bin

Have you ever run into issues where you delete a file, empty the recycle bin and when you reboot your computer suddenly, the deleted files magically reappear? You delete the files again and low and behold their back again!

This happens when the recycle bin in windows suddenly becomes corrupted. Good news though! There's a fix for it and it's simple too!

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1.Repairing a Corrupted Recycle Bin

1. Click on Start > Windows System > Right click on Command Prompt and select "Run as Administrator" (If you're using Windows 10 and 11 you might have to press more then you'll see the additional options)
   

2. Type the following command: rd /s /q C:\$Recycle.bin and press enter.
   

   

3. Reboot your pc and you should be able to reuse the recycle bin again.

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2. Reinstall the Recycle Bin

1. Click Start > Windows System > Control Panel

 2. Select "Appearance and Personalization"

3. Select "File Explorer Options"

4. Under the View Tab, scroll down to "Hide protected Operating system files (Recommended) and deselect it. Agree to the warning by pressing Yes then select Apply and OK

5. Open File explorer and navigate to your C:\ Drive and look for the $RECYCLE.BIN folder and delete it.

Important Note This will not affect the performance of your computer. We also recommend you repeat steps 1 through 4 but instead of deselecting Hide Protected operating system files (Recommended) you select it.

6. Restart your computer and once it reloads you should be able to delete unwanted files again.

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3. Run a SFC to Repair Problems with Windows

If the above method does not work, there might be some additional issues going on. Running a SFC scan might help resolve the issue for good!

To run an SFC Scan do the following:

1.  Open Command Prompt as Administrator
   

2.  In the command line type the following: SFC /Scannow and press enter.

It's going to take a little time depending on your system so don't be alarmed and let it do its thing. Important Tip: if errors are found, you may want to rerun the command a few more times to make sure everything is fixed correctly. After the scan is completed, the logs will be saved to %windir%\Logs\CBS\CBS.log.