How to unoccupied Your Recycle Bin on a Schedule in Windows 10

Using a built-in feature called Storage Sense, you can save disk space by configuring Windows 10 to automatically delete files of a certain age located in your Recycle Bin every day, week, or month. Here's how to set it up.

First, open the "Start Menu" and open "Settings" by clicking the "Gear" icon on the left. You can also press Windows+I to open Quick Settings. In Settings, click the “System” icon and then click “Storage”.

At the top of Storage Options, you'll see a small paragraph of text about Storage Sense. Click the sliding switch located just below to set it to the "On" position And then under that, click on “Configure Storage Sense or run now”.

In the "Storage Sense" options, you'll want to note a few different settings. The first is the frequency at which Storage Sense runs, which is set with the drop-down menu labeled "Run Storage Sense". You can set it to run daily, weekly, or monthly—or whenever disk space is low. Click on the menu and select the option that works best for you.

Since we're only talking about deleting files from the Recycle Bin, uncheck the box next to "Delete temporary files that my apps aren't using" if you don't want Storage Sense to remove old temporary files. Also, if needed, set the "Delete files in my downloads folder" option to "Never" using the drop-down menu.

Inside, you'll find a drop-down menu that says "Delete files in my Recycle Bin if they've been around too long," and the options are "Never," "1 day," "14 days, "30 days," or "60 days. "

Here's how it works: Whenever Storage Sense is run (according to previous settings), it will automatically delete files that have been sitting in your Recycle Bin for longer than that amount of time. Using the menu, you set it to any option.

After that, you are free to close the settings.

If you ever change your mind about the frequency of emptying the Recycle Bin (or want to disable it), just visit Settings > Storage again and set Storage Sense to "Off". Or, you can change the spacing options again to suit your needs.