If you are someone who likes a minimal desktop, the first thing you might do is remove or hide all desktop icons, including the recycle bin. However, doing so will limit you from opening the recycle bin. Thankfully, you can pin the recycle bin to the taskbar. That way, you can open the recycle bin with just a single click no matter where you are in the OS. In this tutorial, we’ll show you the simplest way to pin the recycle bin icon to your taskbar. Let’s get started.
Note: The below steps are tested to work on Windows 10 and 11.
Steps to Pin Recycle Bin to Taskbar
To pin the recycle bin, you cannot simply drag and drop it onto the taskbar. You first need to create a shortcut and then add it to the taskbar. Here’s how to do it.
- On the desktop, right-click and select New and then Shortcut.
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- In the blank field, enter “%SystemRoot%\explorer.exe shell:RecycleBinFolder” and click Next.
- Enter Recycle Bin in the name field and click Finish. This will be the name of your shortcut.
- Since the recycle bin is part of the Windows Explorer, it uses the default File Explorer icon. To change that, right-click on the shortcut and select Properties.
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- Click the Change Icon button in the Shortcut tab.
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- Add “%SystemRoot%\system32\imageres.dll” in the Look for icons in this file field and press Enter.
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- Find the recycle bin icon, select it, and click OK.
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- You can see the new icon in the properties window. Click OK to save changes.
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- Now, drag and drop the recycle bin shortcut onto the taskbar.
- This action will pin the recycle bin to the taskbar.
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That is all. As you can see, though not as straightforward as pinning an application, it is pretty easy. Once you are done pinning the recycle bin, you hide the recycle bin icon on the desktop. Just as with the recycle bin, you can also pin a folder to the taskbar for quick and easy access to your favorite folders.
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