How to add a Recycle bin Icon to the System Tray

The Recycle Bin is where deleted files go to. Then to fully erase them, you’ll usually need to empty the Recycle Bin. So it would be handy to have a Recycle Bin icon on the Windows 10 system tray that you can select to quickly empty it. You can add exactly that to Windows with a couple of software packages.

Firstly, click here and press the Download Now button on the Softpedia page to save the MiniBin Zip to Windows. Click Extract all to decompress the Zip, and then run MiniBin from the extracted folder. Then you’ll find a new Recycle Bin icon on your system tray as in the snapshot below.

Now you can empty the Recycle Bin directly from the system tray by double-clicking its icon there. However, you can alter that by right-clicking the bin icon, selecting Configure and Icon Double-Click Action. Open the bin by right-clicking the system tray icon and selecting Open.

The system tray Recycle Bin has five alternative icons to highlight how full it is. You can right-click the system tray icon and select Configure > Change Icons to expand a menu that shows you the icons as below.

An alternative to MiniBin is SysTray Recycler, which you can add to Windows platforms from XP up from this page. Click the Download button there to save the program’s Zip, and then extract that folder as before. The software adds the Recycle Bin icon in the shot below to the system tray.

Now click that icon to open its context menu. There you can click Recycle Bin to open a submenu with Open and Empty options on it. Click Options to open the small window below.

There you can select an Empty Recycle Bin if there are more than files option. When selected, that option automatically empties the bin when it includes more than a specified number of files. Enter the maximum number of files for it to include in the text box.

So MiniBin and SysTray Recycler are two programs that add a Recycle Bin icon to your system tray. This icon will certainly come in handy as it enables you to open and empty the bin directly from the taskbar without closing windows to return to desktop. SysTray Recycler can also automatically empty the bin for you when it fills up.