Working with the Recycle Bin Folder
One of the easiest thing that users usually do in their Windows machine is deleting some stuff that are not needed. Doing this is quite easy especially if you’ve been using Windows for a very long time but in Microsoft’s brand new operating system called Windows 8.1, there are some things that has been added to the delete option which will surely make it even more useful and in this tutorial, we will be talking about them and see how you can enable some of these features and options to improve the function of the delete option. We will also tackle some things about the Recycle Bin folder and discuss some tweaks that you can do with it so be sure to get your machine ready to do all of the tweaks that I will be showing below.
How to Delete an Item
Deleting some unused items in your Windows machine is a very important maintenance step which will ensure that your computer has enough space for handling newer files and accommodating other programs and apps that you want to install in it. If you’ve been using Windows for a long time, you should already be familiar with the steps in deleting files from any location within the operating system itself. One way in doing it is by using the right-click menu. To perform this important maintenance step, simply browse towards the location of the file that you want to delete and once you find it, just put the mouse pointer over the item and do a single click on it so it will be selected. Once the item gets selected, just do a right-click gesture on it and you will see a right-click menu which looks the same as the one shown on the screenshot below.
If you are using a Windows 8.1 machine then there’s another way in deleting a specific file, folder, photo, video or any other item in it which now involves the ribbon-based options instead of the right-click menu. To do this, just browse towards the location of the file as you did in the previous delete method and once you find the file, simply select it by clicking on it once. After you do so, simply hit the delete button that is found under the “Home tab” of the File Explorer ribbon as highlighted on the screenshot below.
Tweaking the Delete Options
Windows 8.1 does not only make the process of deleting items a lot easier but also gives even more options for deleting items. Back in the days of some older Windows versions, deleting an item from your computer usually just moved them to the Recycle Bin folder and nothing else happens after that but in the new Windows 8.1 operating system, you can choose whether an item moves to the Recycle Bin folder or not and do even more tweaks like getting the recycle confirmation to show on the screen or not. To do all these tweaks, simply follow the steps that I’ll be showing below:
Moving Deleted Files to the Recycle Bin
Windows 8.1 moves your deleted files to the Recycle Bin folder by default so there’s really no issues about this setting but if you want to move just one specific file into the Recycle Bin and permanently delete all the others, all you need to do is select the specific file to be deleted and after doing so, you will need to click on the arrow-down button that is located just below the “Delete” option under the “Home tab” of File Explorer’s ribbon. After doing so, you should be able to see 3 other options and from here, just click on the one that says “Recycle” as highlighted on the screenshot below.
Once the deleting process completes, you can go ahead and open the Recycle Bin folder and you should be able to see the item that you just deleted in it.
Permanently Deleting an Item
Another option which is available in when you are deleting some stuff in your Windows 8.1 machine is the one that allows you to remove the specific stuff permanently from your computer. This means that the file or any other item that you deleted will permanently be erased from your computer’s memory instead of having it moved to the Recycle Bin folder. To do this trick, just select the item that you want to permanently delete from your computer and after doing so, just click again on the arrow-down icon which is found below the “Delete” button on the “Home tab” of the File Explorer ribbon. After doing so, the same set of options which appeared earlier in the previous step that I described will appear and from here simply click on the one that says “Permanently delete” as shown below.
After doing so you should be able to have the file deleted permanently and if you try to check the Recycle Bin folder, there should be no trace of the file that you will be able to find in it.
Working with the Recycle Bin Folder
Another aspect of the Windows 8.1 operating system that has been improved is the Recycle Bin folder itself and because of the presence of the brand new ribbon-based options, accessing some options and changing some tweaks in it is made a lot easier. To start doing these things, just open the Recycle Bin folder using File Explorer and after doing so, just move your attention to the ribbon that is located on top.
As you can see, all of the options that used to be located in the right-click menu are now found on the ribbon so if you want to do something like emptying the Recycle Bin of its contents, restoring all of the items in it or even restoring the items that you have selected, all you need to do is click on the button that corresponds to the option that you want to do.
Changing the Recycle Bin Folder Properties
Another tweak that you can do with the Recycle Bin folder is specifying the its size so that you can just leave it alone and the old files which were deleted will just be replaced by the latest ones when the available size gets consumed. To do this, just hit the button located on the ribbon that says “Recycle Bin properties” and after doing so, a small Window will appear showing the options that you can make changes with. To change the size allocation for the Recycle Bin folder, just enter the value (in MB) into the box provided as highlighted on the screenshot below.
From here, you can specify the location of the Recycle Bin folder just in case there are some other hard drive partitions that exists on your Windows 8.1 machine and also make deleted files to be permanently removed from your computer instead of being moved to the the Recycle Bin folder.To do this, just mark the option that says “Don’t move files to the Recycle Bin. Remove files immediately when deleted”. Finally there’s also a check box for making the delete confirmation appear when you are trying to delete a file. Just mark this box if you want the delete confirmation dialog to appear and once you are done doing changes on this section, simply hit the “Apply” then the “OK” button to save all the changes made.