Why is the Windows 8 recycle bin using more space than it is allocated?

Posted by oldmankit on Super User See other posts from Super User or by oldmankit
Published on 2014-01-22T07:52:47Z Indexed on 2014/06/11 9:29 UTC
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recycle-bin

I ran WinDirStat to scan the contents of my hard drive. I was surprised to see that the $RECYCLE.BIN folder on my D: drive takes 26 GB of space. I emptied the recycle bin, refreshed the folder in WinDirStat, but it still takes 26 GB of space.

I reduced the Maximum size of the recycle bin for this drive to 10000 MB for the main user of this computer, and disabled the recycle bin for the other user, and refreshed the folder in WinDirStat, but it still takes 26 GB of space.

I ran (in an elevated window) rd /s D:\$Recycle.bin, and refreshed the folder in WinDirStat, and finally it became empty.

Why was it taking up space even after I emptied it?
Why was it taking more space (26 GB) than the maximum allowed amount (10 GB)?

Update: After six months of using Windows (no re-install and no changes of settings related to the Recycle Bin) I used WinDirStat to check how big D:\$RECYCLE.BIN has become. It is now 29 GB. In Recycle Bin Properties, I select drive D, and it is still a custom maximum size (10000 MB).

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