General Open Recycle Bin in Windows 11

This tutorial will show you different ways to open the Recycle Bin in Windows 11.

The Recycle Bin provides a safety net when deleting files or folders. When you delete any of these items from a drive, Windows places it in the Recycle Bin and the Recycle Bin icon changes from empty to full.

Removable drives, such as USB flash drives and memory cards, do not have a Recycle Bin by default. Files deleted from removable drives are permanently deleted since they do not go to the Recycle Bin. You can enable the Recycle Bin for removable drives to have deleted files from them go to the Recycle Bin instead.

Knowing different ways to open the Recycle Bin can be handy if another option is missing.

Reference:








1 Go to your Desktop (Win+D).

2 Cick/tap on the Recycle Bin icon. (see screenshot below)

If the Recycle Bin desktop icon is missing, then check:

1) Show desktop icons is checked.
2) Recycle Bin is checked in Desktop Icon Settings.

1 Open File Explorer (Win+E).

2 Click/tap on the address bar in File Explorer. (see screenshot below)

3 Type Recycle Bin into the address bar, and press Enter.







1 Open File Explorer (Win+E).

2 Click/tap on Recycle Bin in the navigation pane. (see screenshot below)

Recycle Bin will only show in the navigation pane while Show all folders is turned on.

1 Open Windows Search (Win+S).

2 Type Recycle Bin into the search box. (see screenshot below)

3 When the Recycle Bin has been found, either click/tap on Open or press Enter.







1 Open Run (Win+R).

2 Copy and paste either command below into Run, and either click/tap on OK or press Enter. (see screenshots below)










1 Open Windows Terminal, and select either Windows PowerShell or Command Prompt.

2 Copy and paste either command below into Terminal, and press Enter. (see screenshots below)







That's it,
Shawn Brink