On Windows XP, the total size of Recycle Bin could be seen easily, but I can't see it on Windows 7. Why did Microsoft hide/remove this feature? Am I missing something?
REMARK 1: I don't need to see the maximum size that Recyle Bin can contain.
REMARK 2: Once you have several files selected in the Recycle Bin, you get a "See more details" link in the status bar, but clicking on that does not display the total file size. Microsoft has apparently changed this.
Sort the Recycle Bin by Item Type, then select all the files, do not select any directories. At the bottom you will be able to see the size of all the files if you show detailed information.
An alternative way is to select all the hidden system folders called $Recycle.bin in the System Root and viewing the details or properties of your selection, but above method should just do...
DIR /S %SYSTEMDRIVE%\$RECYCLE.BIN | FINDSTR /C:File(s)
See the last entry of above command to get the size of the recycle bin from a command prompt.
I wonder why it's important to know the size of the recycle bin though, when you want to know how much space you earn it's better to use Disk Cleanup or a similar tool, but for just getting rid of your deleted items it is not necessary. I think they left that feature out because it would have to look at different recycle bins, but indeed, with an extra effort it wouldn't be hard to implement...
I ran into this as wel.
The accepted answer didn't satisfy my needs. I wanted to know the size of all the recycle bins as well as the total of these.
Using the WMI provider, it is easy to accomplish this: (save as a .vbs file)
dim oFS, oFolder, fileSizeTotal
Dim objWMIService, objItem, colItems, colPartitions, objPartition, _
objLogicalDisk, colLogicalDisks
Dim strComputer, strMessage, strPartInfo,strDeviceID,ret
set oFS = WScript.CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set oShell = CreateObject( "WScript.Shell" )
strComputer = "."
Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:\" & strComputer & "\root\cimv2")
Set colItems = objWMIService.ExecQuery("Select * from Win32_DiskDrive")
For Each objItem in colItems
strDeviceID = Replace(objItem.DeviceID, "", "\")
Set colPartitions = objWMIService.ExecQuery _
("ASSOCIATORS OF {Win32_DiskDrive.DeviceID=""" & strDeviceID & _
"""} WHERE AssocClass = Win32_DiskDriveToDiskPartition")
For Each objPartition In colPartitions
Set colLogicalDisks = objWMIService.ExecQuery _
("ASSOCIATORS OF {Win32_DiskPartition.DeviceID=""" & _
objPartition.DeviceID & _
"""} WHERE AssocClass = Win32_LogicalDiskToPartition")
strPartInfo = strPartInfo & "Disk Partition: " & objPartition.DeviceID
For Each objLogicalDisk In colLogicalDisks
strPartInfo = strPartInfo & " " & objLogicalDisk.DeviceID
ret = ret & objLogicalDisk.DeviceID & ""
if oFS.FolderExists(objLogicalDisk.DeviceID&"$Recycle.Bin") then
RECpath=oShell.ExpandEnvironmentStrings( _
objLogicalDisk.DeviceID & "$Recycle.Bin")
set oFolder = oFS.GetFolder(RECpath)
ShowFolderDetails(oFolder)
else
ret = ret & " -empty- " & vbCr
end if
Next
strPartInfo = strPartInfo & vbCr
Next
Next
Wscript.Echo ret & "---------" & vbCr & "Total: " & calcSize(fileSizeTotal)
WSCript.Quit
Sub ShowFolderDetails(oF)
Dim size
fileSizeTotal = fileSizeTotal + oF.Size
size = calcSize(oF.Size)
ret = ret & " = " & size & vbCr
end Sub
function calcSize(sizeInB)
Dim fSize, iKB, iMB, iGB, d
iKB = 1024
iMB = iKB * 1024
iGB = iMB * 1024
d = 2
if sizeInB >= iGB then
fSize = round(sizeInB/iGB,d) & " GB"
elseif sizeInB >= iMB then
fSize = round(sizeInB/iMB,d) & " MB"
elseif sizeInB >= iKB then
fSize = round(sizeInB/iKB,d) & " KB"
else
fSize = sizeInB & " B"
end if
calcSize = fSize
end function
edit: I updated the script so it will not crash if the partition has no recycle bin. Also Bytes are now shown correctly
It would have been good if Microsoft would save us people trouble to go to all these lengths and just implement the functionality the XP recycle bin had. Too bad.
The easiest solution I could find is the following:
$Recycle.Bin folder, and then right-click and choose properties of the Recycle Bin icon you see.This will show the total size.
You could use something like Rainmeter, which can display an item on your desktop with the size of the items in the recycle bin, not ideal but its an option.
Hope this helps :)
WinDirStat will compute the size of your recycle bin, along with presenting a graphic representation of all the files on your HD and how its space is used. If you're trying to figure out where the space on your drive went it's much better than trying to poke around just using explorer.
I have Windows 7, and I too had the problem of not being able to find out the amount of space that would be freed up once I emptied the Recycle Bin. After reading the above suggestions, I found that Windows 7 DOES display the total size if you select all the files in the Recycle Bin ONLY IF YOU DO NOT INCLUDE FOLDERS IN THE SELECTION. The folder size can be determined by opening each folder and selecting the files as above.
FYI (don't mean to insult anyone): to select all files after opening the Recycle Bin, hit the CTRL button and "A". To de-select folders after selecting all, hold down the CTRL button and click on the folder(s). Once you un-select any folders, the size displays at the bottom.
Unfortunately, if you have a lot of folders in the Recycle Bin, you have to click on these individually and then manually add the sizes to get the total size of the Recycle Bin. So, it may just be easier in this case to do the right-click/Properties on the $Recycle.Bin folder in the C drive as suggested earlier.
On Windows 7 I used Recycle Bin Vista Gadget which was great. However, I couldn't install it anymore. Available in many software repositories/online shops (that come with ugly installers).
I just found MiniBin by e-sushi which puts an icon on the tray. Very Neat! Using it now for Windows 8.
Windows 7: How to display the total size of Recycle Bin
On Windows XP, the total size of Recycle Bin could be seen easily, but I can't see it on Windows 7. Why did Microsoft hide/remove this feature? Am I missing something?
No, you aren’t/weren’t missing anything. For some unknown reason, Microsoft decided to make a horrible UI/UX decision and make it difficult/inconvenient/impossible to see the size of recycled files and folders in Vista and up.
REMARK 1: I don't need to see the maximum size that Recyle Bin can contain.
Of course not, you need to know the size of the actual files and folders. For example, if you delete a bunch of stuff, you want to be able to see how much space you will be freeing. Moreover, you may need to know how much certain sets of recycled files and folders had been taking.
REMARK 2: Once you have several files selected in the Recycle Bin, you get a "See more details" link in the status bar
Windows’ refusal to show information about more than 15 files is yet another baffling design choice. Worse,
but clicking on that does not display the total file size. Microsoft has apparently changed this.
In addition to all the other problems with Explorer and the Recycle Bin, it is simply flat-out broken. There is a bug in Explorer which prevents the Recycle Bin from showing the size of selected items in the bin if even one shortcut or folder is selected. It doesn’t matter how many items you’ve selected, if even one of them is a shortcut or folder, Explorer won’t show the size at all, even though it clearly knows the size of those items per the Size column next to them.
Anyway, what you want is a solution. It turns out that the simplest solution is to use the free shell-enhancer Classic Shell, which is meant to fix Windows by restoring the shell to how it was in XP which everybody was happy with for the most part. In addition to all the other things it improves, one of the things it restores is the ability to see sizes in the Recycle Bin. It shows the size of all selected items no matter what is selected or how many items are selected (figure 1).
Figure 1: Screenshot of Windows 7 Recycle Bin with Classic Shell installed, showing the size of 21 selected bin items including shortcuts and folders.
