The recycle bin is a convenient way to delete files from your computer using a kind of safety net, so if you were wrong, the files in the recycle bin can be recovered and restored to their original location. On Windows the recycle bin has few options to configure, in fact it is only possible to decide its size, that is how much disk space it can occupy.
An incredibly useful feature would be to be able to empty it every x days, at automatic intervals.
This would prevent it from filling up with too many files, taking up a lot of space and forcing the user to empty it manually.
On Windows, however, I found two useful programs, one that adds several options to permanently delete files and the other, very useful, to perform automatic movements or deletions, at predetermined time intervals .
INITIAL NOTE: With Windows 10 it is possible to make the recycle bin empty automatically without using external programs .
The only thing to do is to activate the option by going to the Start menu > Settings, to the System> Storage tab, turning on the Memory Sensor switch.
By pressing the link under the switch, you access the options among which you will find the one to empty the trash automatically after 30 days.
1) Bin Manager is a simple tool to be installed on Windows that works on XP, Vista and Windows 7, only 32 bit.
This little tool adds emptying bin options when you right click on the relative icon.
Specifically, it allows you to choose whether to delete the files deleted from 2, 3 or 7 days or those deleted 30 days ago .
An automatic management of the recycle bin is therefore not obtained but the possibility of deleting the files, in a selected manner, is given.
Hardly a file deleted 30 days ago and no longer used, was deleted by mistake or by distraction.
So the practical result is that, in principle, it is no longer necessary to check whether useful files have been removed and you avoid always emptying the trash completely.
2) A much more serious and solid but always free program is Cyber-D's Auto Delete which, as the name implies, allows you to automatically delete files after a certain period of time .
After installing the program on Windows XP, Vista or Seven, a configuration window opens with some very intuitive options.
With this program you can either delete files and folders automatically, or move them from one folder to another, from one disk to another or between two PCs on the network.
It becomes so easy, for example, to delete temporary files, temporary Internet files, old backups, old log files and everything you want.
In the configuration window you must choose the folder on which you want to delete or automatically move the files.
Pressing Add Folder adds a folder, pressing it again adds other paths giving each one different rules.
By selecting an added folder, you enable the options below that allow you to set filters and adjust the time period.
Filters are very useful, especially for those working in the IT field because they allow you to choose which types of files to delete or move or which files to exclude from moving / deleting.
To impose a rule on the filter, just specify the extension to exclude or include.
Finally, in the third section, the time and the action to be taken are decided.
For the time, you have to decide every how many days to delete or move based on: the last modification, the creation date, the last time it was used.
The action can be to completely delete the files (without selecting anything), to delete them without the possibility of recovering them with the Secure Delete, or to move the chosen files to the recycle bin or to another folder; finally whether or not to include subfolders and empty ones.
At the end the final result will be of this type: for the C: / pippo folder, on the .txt files, every 30 days from the last modification, delete the files and put them in the trash.
In theory you could not empty the trash automatically but if you want, I found an escamotage: Go to the folder C: /, Folder options, Views, remove the flag from " Hide system files ".
Going back to C: / you can now find the Recycler folder which is the Windows recycle bin.
Now with the AutoDelete program you can set the Recycler as the folder to be emptied.
If you leave the program in the background, after selecting the autostar with Windows, all the operations chosen will be performed within the configured times and the files will be deleted or moved according to the criteria.
Another similar program to better manage cestinosis calls RecycleBinEx which works the same way, on which you can configure a time interval to automatically empty the recycle bin of Windows XP or Windows 7
In another article we already talked about how to empty folders automatically .
