The Recycle Bin is undeniably an important place to make files ready for deletion. To put it simply, it assumes some importance but there are times when it displays an unpredictable behavior. For instance, it just suddenly goes missing and even Cortana is unable to find it. A lot of users have experienced the missing Recycle Bin issue in their Windows 10 computers. If you are one of these users, you might have wondered where the Recycle Bin icon has gone and how you can get it back. Worry not, as this post will provide you a couple of options you can try to bring back Recycle Bin in your Windows 10 computer.
Follow the given options below to get started.
Option 1 – Try to restore Recycle Bin
It could be that you have disabled the Recycle Bin by accident which is why Windows was not able to show it on your desktop. To restore Recycle Bin, follow these steps:
- First, click on the Start button and select Settings.
- Next, select the Personalization setting and then select Themes from the left pane.
- After that, click on the “Desktop icon settings” link under the “Related Settings” heading. This will display a list of icons in the Desktop Icons window.
- From there, make sure that you check the checkbox for “Recycle Bin” to make it appear on your Desktop screen once again.
Option 2 – Try to recreate the Recycle Bin
If the first option didn’t work, then it could be that Recycle Bin might have been deleted which is why you fail to restore it. And to resolve this problem, you need to recreate Recycle Bin. Refer to the following steps to do so:
- You need to launch the Windows File Explorer first and go to the View tab.
- From this tab, select Options and click on the drop-down arrow and then select the “Change folder and search option”.
- Afterward, switch to the View tab when the Folder Options window appears on your screen and select the “Show hidden files, folders, and drives” option.
- And then unmark the checkbox next to the “Hide protected operating system files (Recommended)” option and click on both the Apply and OK buttons, respectively.
- Next, go back to the File Explorer and click on “This PC” located on the left bar and go to the C: drive.
- From there, you will find a file named “$Recycle.Bin” located at the top.
- Open this folder to access its contents and you should see the Recycle Bin icon located at the top.
- After that, right-click on the Recycle Bin icon and click on the “Send To” option and then click on “Desktop (create shortcut)”.
- It will then confirm and recreate the Recycle Bin icon on your Desktop screen.
Note: Even though this icon is quite similar to the original one, it actually differs from it. The difference is that you won’t see if fill up when you delete files and you can’t simply empty it by right-clicking on the shortcut. On the other hand, you can still drag items into it just like with the original one. So when you want to empty the content of the newly restored Recycle Bin, you just have to double-click on the shortcut and right-click on the recycle bin in the window that appears, and select the “Empty Recycle Bin” option. In addition, now that you’ve set up the Recycle Bin shortcut, you have to re-activate the “Hide protected operating system files” to keep the important files and folders in your computer hidden.
Option 3 – Try to repair the Recycle Bin
If both the first two options failed to restore the missing Recycle Bin, then you can try repairing it instead. There are times when the Recycle Bin is removed from the Desktop screen due to some corrupted Windows system files. To fix these corrupted system files, you can run the DISM tool. This tool is known to repair potentially corrupted files in your system as having them could also system issues like the missing Recycle Bin. To repair these corrupted system files, you can run the DISM commands:
- Tap the Win + X keys and click on the “Command Prompt (Admin)” option.
- After that, input each one of the commands listed below sequentially to execute them:
- Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /CheckHealth
- Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth
- Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth
- Once you’ve executed the commands given above, restart your computer and check if the problem is now fixed.
Option 4 – Make sure that you are not in Tablet Mode
Since Windows 10 is designed to work on both desktop and mobile devices, it could be that your computer has slipped into Tablet Mode which explains why you’re not seeing the Recycle Bin. To check if your computer is really in Tablet Mode, follow these steps:
- Go to the Start menu and select Settings.
- Next, select the System setting and from the left pane select the Tablet Mode.
- From there, make sure that the buttons next to the options given below are set to the off position:
- Hide app icons on the taskbar in tablet mode
- Automatically hide the taskbar in tablet mode