How to Empty the Windows Recycle Bin

Emptying Recycle Bin in Windows is a pretty straightforward task. In this quick guide, I have explained two options to perform this task.

Option 1: Empty Recycle Bin via the Desktop

1. Right-click the Recycle Bin icon on your Windows desktop and select “Empty Recycle Bin.” Windows will prompt for a confirmation.

Note that clicking Yes in the next step will delete ALL items in your Recycle Bin permanently. Proceed only if you’re sure.

2. On the “Delete multiple items” confirmation pop-up, click Yes.

Option 2: Empty Recycle Bin with PowerShell

You can also use the Clear-RecycleBin PowerShell command to empty the Recycle Bin on a Windows computer.

1. Open PowerShell as administrator.
2. Then, to clear the Recycle Bin, run the command without any parameters.

Clear-RecycleBin

When you execute the command by pressing the Enter key on your keyboard, PowerShell will prompt you to confirm. Type Y and press Enter again.

If you want to avoid this prompt and force the command to proceed without prompting for confirmation, run the Clear-RecycleBin command with the Force parameter.

Clear-RecycleBin -Force

You can also replace the Force parameter with -Confirm:$false. Both will achieve the same result.

Clear-RecycleBin -Confirm:$false

Finally, you can also empty the Recycle Bin for a specific drive. In this example command, I want to empty Drive C’s.

Clear-RecycleBin -DriveLetter C

Conclusion

Empty the Recycle Bin on a Windows Computer is as simple as a few clicks. You can even do it by running a one-line PowerShell command!

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