Delete old files in recycle bin with powershell

Question

Ok, I have a script I am writing in powershell that will delete old files in the recycle bin. I want it to delete all files from the recycle bin that were deleted more than 2 days ago. I have done lots of research on this and have not found a suitable answer.

This is what I have so far(found the script online, i don't know much powershell):

$Path = 'C' + ':\$Recycle.Bin'
Get-ChildItem $Path -Force -Recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue |
#Where-Object { $_.LastWriteTime -lt (Get-Date).AddDays(-3) } |
Remove-Item -Recurse -exclude *.ini -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

It is working great with one exception, it checks the file parameter "LastWriteTime". That is awesome if the user deletes the file they same day they modify it. Otherwise it fails.

How can I modify this code so that it will check when the file was deleted, not when it was written.

-On a side note, if I run this script from an administrator account on Microsoft Server 2008 will it work for all users recycle bins or just mine?

---

Answer:

the code that worked for me is:

$Shell = New-Object -ComObject Shell.Application
$Global:Recycler = $Shell.NameSpace(0xa)

foreach($item in $Recycler.Items())
{
    $DeletedDate = $Recycler.GetDetailsOf($item,2) -replace "\u200f|\u200e",""
    $dtDeletedDate = get-date $DeletedDate 
    If($dtDeletedDate -lt (Get-Date).AddDays(-3))
    {
        Remove-Item -Path $item.Path -Confirm:$false -Force -Recurse
    }#EndIF
}#EndForeach item

It works awesome for me, however 2 questions remain...How do I do this with multiple drives? and Will this apply to all users or just me?

Ammadis

Answer 1

This article has answers to all your questions

http://baldwin-ps.blogspot.be/2013/07/empty-recycle-bin-with-retention-time.html

Code for posterity:

# ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 
#
#       Author    :   Baldwin D.
#       Description : Empty Recycle Bin with Retention (Logoff Script)
#     
# -----------------------------------------------------------------------

$Global:Collection = @()

$Shell = New-Object -ComObject Shell.Application
$Global:Recycler = $Shell.NameSpace(0xa)

$csvfile = "\\YourNetworkShare\RecycleBin.txt"
$LogFailed = "\\YourNetworkShare\RecycleBinFailed.txt"


function Get-recyclebin
{ 
    [CmdletBinding()]
    Param
    (
        $RetentionTime = "7",
        [Switch]$DeleteItems
    )

    $User = $env:USERNAME
    $Computer = $env:COMPUTERNAME
    $DateRun = Get-Date

    foreach($item in $Recycler.Items())
        {
        $DeletedDate = $Recycler.GetDetailsOf($item,2) -replace "\u200f|\u200e","" #Invisible Unicode Characters
        $DeletedDate_datetime = get-date $DeletedDate   
        [Int]$DeletedDays = (New-TimeSpan -Start $DeletedDate_datetime -End $(Get-Date)).Days

        If($DeletedDays -ge $RetentionTime)
            {
            $Size = $Recycler.GetDetailsOf($item,3)

            $SizeArray = $Size -split " "
            $Decimal = $SizeArray[0] -replace ",","."
            If ($SizeArray[1] -contains "bytes") { $Size = [int]$Decimal /1024 }
            If ($SizeArray[1] -contains "KB") { $Size = [int]$Decimal }
            If ($SizeArray[1] -contains "MB") { $Size = [int]$Decimal * 1024 }
            If ($SizeArray[1] -contains "GB") { $Size = [int]$Decimal *1024 *1024 }

       $Object = New-Object Psobject -Property @{
                Computer = $computer
                User = $User
                DateRun = $DateRun
                Name = $item.Name
                Type = $item.Type
                SizeKb = $Size
                Path = $item.path
                "Deleted Date" = $DeletedDate_datetime
                "Deleted Days" = $DeletedDays }

            $Object

                If ($DeleteItems)
                {
                    Remove-Item -Path $item.Path -Confirm:$false -Force -Recurse

                    if ($?)
                    {
                        $Global:Collection += @($object)
                    }
                    else
                    {
                        Add-Content -Path $LogFailed -Value $error[0]
                    }
                }#EndIf $DeleteItems
            }#EndIf($DeletedDays -ge $RetentionTime)
}#EndForeach item
}#EndFunction

Get-recyclebin -RetentionTime 7 #-DeleteItems #Remove the comment if you wish to actually delete the content


if (@($collection).count -gt "0")
{
$Collection = $Collection | Select-Object "Computer","User","DateRun","Name","Type","Path","SizeKb","Deleted Days","Deleted Date"
$CsvData = $Collection | ConvertTo-Csv -NoTypeInformation
$Null, $Data = $CsvData

Add-Content -Path $csvfile -Value $Data
}

[System.Runtime.Interopservices.Marshal]::ReleaseComObject($shell)

#ScriptEnd

Unperforated

I like this, this seems to do what I want but I am having a hard time filtering what I want from his script. I see that $DeletedDate = $Recycler.GetDetailsOf($item,2) -replace "\u200f|\u200e","" gets what I am looking for but where is $Recycler defined? – Ammadis

Second line of the script, $Global:Recycler it defines it as a global variable. – Fanchan

Could you move some of the insights from the article into your answer? We can't assume that link will be alive forever. – Plasmo

Ok, that was a silly mistake. I was looking at the excert from his script at the top rather than the whole script at the bottom. Got the code working great! How do I apply this same thing to different drives though? I need it to do the same thing for E: and F:. Also will this apply to all users or just me? – Ammadis

I don't have so many questions. I just wans a few lines of PS to empty recycle bin on all drives. – Heresiarch

Answer 2

WMF 5 includes the new "Clear-RecycleBin" cmdlet.

PS > Clear-RecycleBin -DriveLetter C:\

Zeralda

Answer 3

These two lines will empty all the files recycle bin:

$Recycler = (New-Object -ComObject Shell.Application).NameSpace(0xa)
$Recycler.items() | foreach { rm $_.path -force -recurse }

Yean

If it matters, note that this won't refresh the Recycle Bin icon on the desktop – Behn

Answer 4

Had to do a bit of research on this myself, the recycle bin contains two files for every file deleted on every drive in win 10 (in win 7 files are as is so this script is too much and needs to be cut down, especially for powershell 2.0, win 8 untested), an info file created at time of deletion $I (perfect for ascertaining the date of deletion) and the original file $R, i found the com object method would ignore more files than i liked but on the up side had info i was interested in about the original file deleted, so after a bit of exploring i found a simple get-content of the info files included the original file location, after cleaning it up with a bit of regex and came up with this:

# Refresh Desktop Ability
$definition = @'
    [System.Runtime.InteropServices.DllImport("Shell32.dll")] 
    private static extern int SHChangeNotify(int eventId, int flags, IntPtr item1, IntPtr item2);
    public static void Refresh() {
        SHChangeNotify(0x8000000, 0x1000, IntPtr.Zero, IntPtr.Zero);    
    }
'@
Add-Type -MemberDefinition $definition -Namespace WinAPI -Name Explorer

# Set Safe within deleted days and get physical drive letters
$ignoreDeletedWithinDays = 2
$drives = (gwmi -Class Win32_LogicalDisk | ? {$_.drivetype -eq 3}).deviceid

# Process discovered drives
$drives | % {$drive = $_
    gci -Path ($drive+'\$Recycle.Bin\*\$I*') -Recurse -Force | ? {($_.LastWriteTime -lt [datetime]::Now.AddDays(-$ignoreDeletedWithinDays)) -and ($_.name -like "`$*.*")} | % {

        # Just a few calcs
        $infoFile         = $_
        $originalFile     = gi ($drive+"\`$Recycle.Bin\*\`$R$($infoFile.Name.Substring(2))") -Force
        $originalLocation = [regex]::match([string](gc $infoFile.FullName -Force -Encoding Unicode),($drive+'[^<>:"/|?*]+\.[\w\-_\+]+')).Value
        $deletedDate      = $infoFile.LastWriteTime
        $sid              = $infoFile.FullName.split('\') | ? {$_ -like "S-1-5*"}
        $user             = try{(gpv "HKLM:\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\$($sid)" -Name ProfileImagePath).replace("$(gpv 'HKLM:\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList' -Name ProfilesDirectory)\",'')}catch{$Sid}

        #' Various info
        $originalLocation
        $deletedDate
        $user
        $sid
        $infoFile.Fullname
        ((gi $infoFile -force).length / 1mb).ToString('0.00MB')
        $originalFile.fullname
        ((gi $originalFile -force).length / 1mb).ToString('0.00MB')
        ""

        # Blow it all Away
        #ri $InfoFile -Recurse -Force -Confirm:$false -WhatIf
        #ri $OriginalFile -Recurse -Force -Confirm:$false- WhatIf
        # remove comment before two lines above and the '-WhatIf' statement to delete files
    }
}

# Refresh desktop icons
[WinAPI.Explorer]::Refresh()

Teachin

As a powershell newbie, where is this script run? Can it be put into a .bat file? – Mussel

No problem. I found out the code can be run from a file with a .ps1 extension. To run, right-click the file and click, "Run with PowerShell". – Mussel

Answer 5

This works well also as a script with the task scheduler.

Clear-RecycleBin -Force

Chisel

I was just trying to work out how to get this PS to work against ALL drive letters as a variable: Get-ChildItem “d:`$Recycle.bin\” -Force | Remove-Item -Recurse -WhatIf, because PS4 is still in use for those who have not yet migrated to 5.1. – Squall