How Do I Pin Recycle Bin to Desktop in Windows 11? A Complete Guide

How Do I Pin Recycle Bin to Desktop in Windows 11 A Complete Guide

The recycle bin is a very important data recovery tool that can also help you keep a tidy desktop as it holds and keeps away all the trash. This is one of the reasons why users want to pin the recycle bin on the taskbar to make it a tool you can easily access without having to go to the search bar. 

Windows does not, however, allow the pinning of the recycle bin on the taskbar. It is therefore cornered and it may not be very easy for you to pin the recycle bin to the taskbar as your only reliable way to keep the desktop as neat as possible. But users always find a way around this problem despite the Windows system forbidding it! 

It should be good news to everyone who wants to stick a recycle bin to their taskbar. The flexibility it gives you when you want to recover desktop files or recover files deleted from recycle bin is high level. In this guide, we will show you how to perform this task to avoid compromising on a neat desktop. Let’s do it step by step. 

Step 1: Create a Recycle Bin Shortcut 

Since the Windows system does not allow you to pin a recycle bin taskbar, the only way out is to create a shortcut to it. As a first step towards pinning the tool to your taskbar, right-click on an empty space on the screen of your desktop to display a pop-up window. From the menu that pops up, hover the cursor on “New” to display additional information. Choose “Shortcut.” 

Once you choose “Shortcut”, you will see another dialogue box showing “create shortcut.” Click on it to display more information. 

In the “Type the location of the item” text field, type out “explorer.exe shell:RecycleBinFolder.”

You will need to click “Next” to continue to the next dialogue box. Type “Recycle Bin” in the “Type a name for this shortcut” field. Tap the “Finish” icon to complete. 

Step 2: Customize the Shortcut

Creating a shortcut alone is not enough to have your recycle bin pinned to the taskbar. This is not even closer to that. You will need to make the shortcut look like a recycle bin in the first place before even trying to pin it. 

To do that, double-click on the shortcut you just created and select “Properties” from the popup menu. Another way to do this is by holding “Alt” and tapping “Enter” to open its properties. While still on the recycle bin properties dialog box, select the “Shortcut” tab and choose “Change Icon” button. 

The icons that come up are not “Recycle Bin” icons. You will need to input “%SystemRoot%\System32\imageres.dll.” Now tap “Enter” or the “Ok” button. 

You can now side-scroll through the icons available in order to find the recycle bin icon. You should However take note that there are two recycle bin icons – the empty one and another that is filled. Select the shortcut you created and tap “OK”. 

Still on the recycle bin properties dialog box, tap the “Apply” button to apply the changes. Once that is done, click the “Ok” button to close the dialog box and end the process. You should now be having a recycle bin replica on your desktop screen. 

Step two is done and you are ready to move to step three. Remember at step one, we created the shortcut, which we customized to generate a replica of the recycle bin on the desktop screen. 

Step 3: Pin the Recycle Bin to the Taskbar

This is the final step of pinning the recycle bin to the taskbar. To begin, right-click on the recycle bin icon you have created in step 2 above. Scroll the menu and select “Show more options.”

Once you get to “Select more options,” choose “Pin to taskbar.” The recycle bin should now be pinned to the taskbar and will be easily accessible from there.

Unpinning Recycle Bin from Taskbar

Can you unpin the recycle bin from the desktop? Yes, the recycle bin can be deleted from desktop following a safe process. Remember, pinning the recycle bin to the taskbar gives you more flexibility in terms of moving files to the bin and out of it. You also have the advantage of easily creating more space in your drive by deleting items temporarily and recovering them again once you do not need that extra space. 

Unpinning the recycle bin from the taskbar should however be easier just like it is to windows 11 move recycle bin to desktop. You need to simply right-click on the recycle bin icon appearing on the taskbar and select “Unpin from taskbar.” This simple step takes the recycling bin out of the taskbar immediately. 

How to Remove the Original Recycle Bin from the Desktop

As we mentioned earlier already, adding recycle bin to desktop windows 11 makes them look crowded. Pinning the recycle bin to the taskbar is to make your desktop neat. We meant to remove the recycle bin icon from your desktop screen and give it a little freshness! Otherwise, it would not make sense to have two recycle bin icons. 

However, the recycle bin is built in a manner that you cannot easily remove it from the desktop screen using the same traditional ways used to remove other icons. This is because the recycle bin is a critical function of the desktop. Here, we will show you how to remove the recycle original recycle bin from the desktop screen. 

Step 1: Right-click on an empty space on the desktop screen and select “Personalize” from the menu that appears. 

Step 2: Once you are in the “Personalization section, tap on the “Themes” icon. 

Step 3: Navigate to the “Related settings” by scrolling through the “Themes” screen. Once you find “Related settings,” click the “Desktop icon settings” title. This should take you to an open “Desktop icon settings” dialog box showing the “Recycle bin” automatically ticked. 

Step 4: Untick or uncheck the “Recycle bin” from the list of desktop icons appearing on the “Desktop icon settings” dialog box. 

Step 5: Tap “Apply” and click “Ok” to apply the changes. The dialog box will automatically close to end the process. 

The recycle bin icon will be removed from the desktop and you will not be able to see it once you tap the “Ok” button. However, the recycle bin icon you pinned on the taskbar remains and can be used to perform all the recycle bin tasks easily and more conveniently. 

Thanks for Reading :)

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How Do I Pin Recycle Bin to Desktop in Windows 11? A Complete Guide

by Mohit Rajora time to read: 4 min
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