These features give you a grace period during which you can get your files back. If you somehow erased that vital company report that’s due Wednesday or you inadvertently wiped every single image of grandma you’ve ever taken, don’t panic.
Undelete options can get you out of a real hole, so it’s well worth taking the time to make sure they’re configured just right. This includes how long a platform keeps files before permanently erasing and how much space they’re allowed to take up
You should always be able to see the Recycle Bin on your Windows desktop—if you don’t, right-click on a blank part of the desktop and choose View and Show desktop icons. If it’s still not there, open Windows Settings then pick Personalization, Themes, and Desktop icon settings. When the Recycle Bin icon is visible on the desktop, right-click on it and choose Properties to configure how it works.
On this menu, you can set up how much space the contents of the Recycle Bin take up on your disk—by default, as soon as this space is full, the oldest files in there will be wiped. If you want to get rid of something right away, you can also manually wipe files by right-clicking on the Recycle Bin and choosing Empty Recycle Bin. From this menu, you can also choose to skip this folder altogether, and have Windows erase files permanently as soon as you delete them.
If you don’t want to depend on space, you can set up a time limit as well. To do this, open Settings and choose System then Storage Sense: Turn on Automatic User content cleanup and set your time limit for the Recycle Bin (from one to 60 days) via the drop-down list underneath.
use of a Trash folder rather than a Recycle Bin, but the idea is the same: Deleted files go there you can recover them again if you need them.
By default, files stay in the Trash indefinitely—there’s no time or space limit. To permanently delete you need to manually empty the Trash by right-clicking on its icon in the macOS dock and choosing Empty Trash.
If this is something you don’t want to have to do regularly, and you’d rather have the disk space back, open Finder and pick Preferences from the Finder menu. Under the Advanced heading, check the box marked Remove items from the Trash after 30 days.
If you’re confident that you’re never going to accidentally delete anything important, or you’ve got a very robust backup solution in place, you can even skip the Trash altogether. With the files selected, use the Option+Cmd+Delete keyboard shortcut or hold down the Option key and pick File, Delete Immediately from the Finder menu.
Those of you who’ve got your files syncing to and from Dropbox in the cloud can recover deleted files for up to 30 days. If you’re paying for the Professional, Standard, or Advanced plans with more storage, files will wait for 180 days before deletion, and they won’t count towards your storage quota.
Unfortunately, there aren’t any settings to configure here, and if you want deleted files to stick around for longer, you’ll just need to upgrade your Dropbox plan. Note that the Plus and Family packages, which start at $10 a month, have the same 30-day window for deleted files as free plans do.
To get your files back after they’ve been deleted, log into Dropbox on the web, and click on Deleted on the left. Select one or more files you get the option to Restore or Delete permanently on the right. Note that this works independently of the Recycle Bin on Windows and the Trash on macOS.
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