To maintain good performance on your PC, there are steps you can take. One important measure is to keep enough free space on your disk. Sometimes, when we delete programs or files, they end up in the recycle bin, taking up space even after we’ve forgotten about them.
But there’s a handy solution for this, especially if you’re using Microsoft Windows 11. You can enable a feature that automatically empties the recycle bin. This way, you don’t have to worry about doing it manually.
In this guide, we’ll walk you through the simple process of turning on this feature. It’s a convenient way to make sure your recycle bin is regularly cleared, freeing up space for things you actually need. Let’s see how you can enable this automatic recycle bin cleaning in the Windows 11 system.
Empty the Windows 11 recycle bin.
It only takes a few steps to empty the recycle bin on Windows 11 without doing it yourself daily. This is how you set the recycle bin to be emptied automatically:
- Starts the Windows 11 settings (key combination Windows + i)
- Click on the menu item “Storage.”
- Enable and select “Storage Optimization”.
- Set the switch to “On” for “Automatic cleaning of user content.”
- Now select the intervals at which the recycle bin should be emptied automatically
Various setting options are available when selecting the time intervals for automatically emptying the Windows 11 recycle bin. In this regard, you can choose from the following distances:
- Never
- 1 day
- 14 days
- 30 days (default setting)
- 60 days
The selection options allow you to customize the emptying of the Windows 11 recycle bin according to your needs and work habits. Keeping the interval between two deletions small would make sense if you regularly delete files and applications.
Of course, it is essential to ensure that content that you will still need in the future is retrieved from the recycle bin in good time. Or you make sure that they don’t even find their way there.
Automatically empty the Windows 11 recycle bin – is it worth it?
You can easily turn on the “Automatically empty Windows 11 recycle bin” feature in the Windows 11 settings. You don’t need to spend a lot of time on it. While there are third-party tools available to do the same thing, they’re not really necessary because Windows 11 already has this feature built-in.
Windows operating systems offer a simple way to clear out the recycle bin and free up storage space. This can help boost the overall performance of your computer, especially if there are a lot of files in the recycle bin.
So, it’s a smart idea to let Windows 11 handle this task automatically. Enabling this feature is quick and easy, both in Windows 11 and even in Windows 10, as you can see in our instructions. It’s a good way to make sure your computer’s performance stays at its best.
