recycle bins

[bwallx]

I have five hard drives/ssds on my system. Everything is fantastic for search all of these. I am puzzled by all the recycle bins listed by Everything. If I click the recycle bin on my desktop and empty it, the bins on the other drives remain with content. With system and hidden files revealed in Explorer I can't see any recycle bins in these other drives, yet Everything insist they are there! For security reasons I want to empty these bins. Any suggestions please?

PS I tried Ccleaner but that had no effect. I also followed some suggestions for using the command prompt such as

rd /s /q E:\$Recycle.bin but the 'bin' extention wasn't recognised

also tried 'Clear-RecycleBin -force -ErrorAction:Ignore'

Any third party apps to do this maybe please?

[therube]

$Recycle.bin is a "hidden" directory.
So In order to "see" (DIR) it, you have to give use the hidden switch.

C:\> DIR /AH $Recycle.bin


(I would be very careful with your RD command, as in get it wrong & ...)

[therube]

When you open "Recycle Bin" you are presented with a "homogenized" view of things.

Everything (or DIR) see the actual files/directories that are there.

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=6879

[bwallx]

Interesting, thanks.

[NotNull]

$Recycle.bin creates a folder for every user. You can empty your own Recycle Bin, but that doens't emty those of other users (including "system users"
Your

rd /s /q E:\$Recycle.bin

should do the trick, but you need to run CMD as administrator to have access to the recycle bins of those other users.
You might have to reboot after that to recreate the $Recycle.bin folder.

[bwallx]

• PS C:\Windows\system32> rd /s /q E:\$Recycle.bin
  Remove-Item : A positional parameter cannot be found that accepts argument '/q'.
  At line:1 char:1
  + rd /s /q E:\$Recycle.bin
  + ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  + CategoryInfo : InvalidArgument: (:) [Remove-Item], ParameterBindingException
  + FullyQualifiedErrorId : PositionalParameterNotFound,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.RemoveItemCommand

Hmmm. The command doesn't work. Deleting the quiet q parameter just results in a dot bin not recognised error.

[NotNull]

Try it with CMD.exe instead of PowerShell ...

(leaving the /Q out will ask you if you are sure; an extra safety net)

[therube]

(Again, if you get it wrong... potentially "dangerous".
At the least, if you ensure you're starting from within E:\$Recycle.bin, less likely to go wrong.
Plus, with that, you're only deleting the contents within, & not the directory itself.
And with that, no need to wonder about its recreation. (desktop.ini could be different?))

[NotNull]

All right, the extra safe option If you have 7-zip installed (but who doesn't ..):

With 7-zip comes a hidden gem: 7-Zip File Manager.
Among other things it gives you dual pane layout (like Total Commander), access to low level filesystem (\\?\... , \\.\ ...), but more relevant here: access to the recycle bin.

- Right-click the 7-Zip File Manager shortcut and choose Run as Administrator
- Browse to $Recycle.bin
- Delete (Shift-Delete) all folder you want to remove

If you don't have a shortcut, right-click 7zfm.exe and choose Run as Administrator (Everything will tell you where it is installed )