How to open the Recycle Bin from the Windows command line?

How do I open the Recycle Bin from the command line?

I'd be very glad if there is a built-in Windows command.

1

6 Answers

Command line

On the command line, type

start shell:RecycleBinFolder

It is not case sensitive, so you can just type start shell:recyclebinfolder.

Run dialog

An alternative is to use the Run dialog (menu Start/Run or Win + R) - there is less to type. Type

shell:RecycleBinFolder

and press OK (or hit Enter).

It is portable!

This method works on all versions of Windows, at least back to Windows 2000.

3

(Depending on the OS and filesystem, the directory may be $Recycle.bin, Recycled, or Recycler.)

• To open the Recycle Bin window (showing deleted objects on all drives):

  C:\> start ::{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}
  or
  C:\> start shell:RecycleBinFolder
  or
  C:\> start C:\$Recycle.bin

• To list deleted objects on a specific drive:

  C:\> dir /s/a <driveletter>:\$Recycle.Bin

  (NB, the original filenames will not be shown in this mode.)

2

You can open the Recycle Bin window by using its GUID:

explorer ::{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}

1

This should work. Tested on Windows 7 successfully.

Open a command prompt and enter

CD \$Recycle.Bin

4

None of the previous 'run' commands for Recycle Bin worked on my Windows 10 machine. The start shell:RecycleBinFolder from inside the command window worked. I could not however find a way to have the system display the usual desktop icon. None of the solutions worked. I was however able to re-create the icon by making an Internet Explorer shortcut:

Target = "C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe" shell:RecycleBinFolder

And then changing the icon to the expected icon by browsing the shell icon DLL file. I now have it back...

Windows button on keyboard + R; then type "shell:RecycleBinFolder" and press Enter: This will take you into the Recycle bin folder and shows the deleted items.

Items deleted using "Shift + Delete" won't be available in Recycle bin because they are permanently deleted. These items can be recovered using data recovery software like Easerus data recovery

Tried and worked perfectly on Windows 10.

2

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