Manipulating the Recycle Bin in PowerShell

The Windows Recycle Bin is a special folder in Windows, but with some simple PowerShell commands, you can manipulate it easily. The method of manipulation is to create a Shell Application COM object, and manipulate it a technique familiar to VB-Scripters the world over

To get to the recycle  bin, you need to do something like this:

$objShell = New-Object -Com Shell.Application
$objFolder = $objShell.Namespace(0xA) # recycle bin!
$objFolderItem = $objFolder.Self

Following on from this, you can  explore the recycle bin by entering the following additional commmand:

$objFolderItem.InvokeVerbEx("Explore")

And to delete all the items in the recycle bin, just type:

$objFolderItem.InvokeVerbEx("Empty Recycle &Bin")

You will, in this last case, be asked to confirm deletion so this command  is nearly safe! As ever, take care when playing with commands like this!!

 

Technorati tags: PowerShell, Windows PowerShell, Recycle Bin