Home Folder Recycle Bin Deletion

[eejit]

This script will recursively search through all sub-folders below the $path variable.

$Path = 'E:\Teaching Staff\Work'

$TotalBinSizes = 0
$TotalBins = 0
Get-ChildItem -Path $Path -Include '$Recycle.bin' -Recurse -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | ForEach-Object -Process {
   $TotalBins++
   $BinSize = (Get-ChildItem -Path $_.FullName -Force -Recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Measure-Object -Property Length -Sum).sum
   
   '{0,-75} {1:N2} MB' -f $_.FullName, ($BinSize / 1mb)
   try
   {
       Remove-Item -Path $_.FullName -Confirm:$false -Force -Recurse -ErrorAction Stop
       $TotalBinSizes += $BinSize
   }
   catch
   {
       Write-Warning -Message 'Unable to empty bin.'
   }    
}
' '
if(($TotalBinSizes / 1mb) -gt 1024)
{
   $Size = $TotalBinSizes / 1gb
   $Unit = 'GB'
}
Else
{
   $Size = $TotalBinSizes / 1mb
   $Unit = 'MB'
}
if($TotalBins -gt 0)
{
   'There were {0} Recycled Bins emptied with a combined size of {1:N2} {2}.' -f $TotalBins, $Size, $Unit
}
Else
{
   'No Recycle Bins needed emptying.'
}

 

...and it looks like this:

[Warwick_Tech]

This script will recursively search through all sub-folders below the $path variable.

$Path = 'E:\Teaching Staff\Work'

$TotalBinSizes = 0
$TotalBins = 0
Get-ChildItem -Path $Path -Include '$Recycle.bin' -Recurse -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | ForEach-Object -Process {
   $TotalBins++
   $BinSize = (Get-ChildItem -Path $_.FullName -Force -Recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Measure-Object -Property Length -Sum).sum
   
   '{0,-75} {1:N2} MB' -f $_.FullName, ($BinSize / 1mb)
   try
   {
       Remove-Item -Path $_.FullName -Confirm:$false -Force -Recurse -ErrorAction Stop
       $TotalBinSizes += $BinSize
   }
   catch
   {
       Write-Warning -Message 'Unable to empty bin.'
   }    
}
' '
if(($TotalBinSizes / 1mb) -gt 1024)
{
   $Size = $TotalBinSizes / 1gb
   $Unit = 'GB'
}
Else
{
   $Size = $TotalBinSizes / 1mb
   $Unit = 'MB'
}
if($TotalBins -gt 0)
{
   'There were {0} Recycled Bins emptied with a combined size of {1:N2} {2}.' -f $TotalBins, $Size, $Unit
}
Else
{
   'No Recycle Bins needed emptying.'
}

 

...and it looks like this:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]55357[/ATTACH]

 

This is a very elegant script - well done;

 

However it randomly fails with access denied errors on different users

 

[eejit]

I'm afraid that just means that you don't have the permissions to access those recycle bins. I've not come across that so it'll be difficult for me to play with the script and update it to list the bins that you need to get access to at the end, but if I do come across it I'll update this post again.

[computerguy]

sorry for the thread mine, is it possible to pass more than 1 directory to this script? I have 5 servers to reference in $path for recycle bin clearouts