$Recycle.Bin C:\$Recycle.Bin

The volume's Recycle Bin. One subfolder is created per user SID; access to other users' SID folders is denied.

Updated on 12 November 2026 By AltF4 Formation

What it’s for

$Recycle.Bin is the hidden folder at the root of each volume where Windows moves what you delete with the Recycle Bin. Every user has a subfolder named after their security identifier (SID). Microsoft documents it mainly for the corrupted Recycle Bin case, where the official fix is to delete $Recycle.Bin from the affected volume.

What it contains

One subfolder per user SID, for example S-1-5-21-…-1001.
S-1-5-18: the Recycle Bin of the local system account (LocalSystem).
For each deleted item, a $I file (metadata: original path, size and deletion date) and a $R file (the content).

Risks and best practices

Access to other SIDs’ subfolders is denied, even for an administrator. File Explorer only shows the Recycle Bin of the current session.
Empty the Recycle Bin from the interface or with Clear-RecycleBin, not by deleting the folder.
On the “The Recycle Bin is corrupted” message, Microsoft recommends deleting the volume’s folder as administrator, then restarting. The items it held are lost.
Each volume has its own Recycle Bin, and the maximum size is set per volume in the Recycle Bin properties.

Useful commands

# Find your SID
whoami /user

# Raw contents (protected folder, as administrator)
Get-ChildItem -Force 'C:\$Recycle.Bin'

# Simulate emptying the recycle bin on volume C:
Clear-RecycleBin -DriveLetter C -WhatIf

Folder contents

Folders 2

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