Recycle Bin can be enabled on a mapped network drive by defining a Known Folder in the registry. (Also a way to create custom user folders. For adding folders to This PC, though, it seems you need to create a CLSID entry instead; use Winaero Tweaker for that.)

Known folder.reg

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

; For folder icons, set folder to read-only and create a desktop.ini set to
; read-only|system|hidden with contents:
;   [.ShellClassInfo]
;   IconResource=C:\Path\To\Icon.ico,0

; Remember to change the guid for each known folder:
; https://www.guidgenerator.com/

; https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/shobjidl_core/ns-shobjidl_core-knownfolder_definition
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FolderDescriptions\{E40D77EC-D4D6-4099-9746-A81C56EA49D5}]
"Category"=dword:00000004
; The known folder name can be typed into the explorer address bar (or Run
; dialog, etc.) to navigate to the folder, e.g. "shell:Books"
"Name"="Books"
; Uncomment ParentFolder to make relative to user profile folder
; Other known folder ids: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/shell/knownfolderid#constants
;"ParentFolder"="{5E6C858F-0E22-4760-9AFE-EA3317B67173}"
"RelativePath"="S:\\Books"

; Enables recycle bin for a location that otherwise wouldn't have one (i.e. network share)
; 500,000 MB = 0007a120
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\BitBucket\KnownFolder\{E40D77EC-D4D6-4099-9746-A81C56EA49D5}]
"MaxCapacity"=dword:0007a120
"NukeOnDelete"=dword:00000000

Hi
I am trying to implement this, but having trouble understanding some of the details.

I understand that I need to make a GUID using the GUID generator website, and substitute it in the two places where you have put your GUID, and then substitute the name of the folder I am using in the "Name" value, and substitute the path to the folder in the "Relative Path" value.

However, what do I use for the "Name" value if there is no folder in the drive, that is, the whole path is the network drive, i.e. Drive A: is mapped to "D:\Dropbox\apps\fileinbox". Also, in my case, what do I use for the "RelativePath" value... just "A:" ?

Regards
Cooky

@smartcooky99 I believe the Name is more of an internal identifier, not actually the folder name, so you can probably just put whatever makes sense, like "Fileinbox". If you scroll through the FolderDescriptions key, you'll see names like "UserProgramFiles" and "OneDriveDocuments". For the RelativePath, when there's no ParentFolder it's just the full path, so A:\\ should be right (backslashes need to be escaped; A: might work too).

OK, thanks for the prompt reply. I'll post back here once I've done it.

Yup... worked perfectly... recycles to the bin from the network drive, and restores OK as well

Didn't even need to escape the backslashes

Thank you!!

I am wondering if you might have a solution to a problem I am having. I have done all of these steps and I am able to setup a recycle bin in each network drive. When I view them in command prompt I can see a file for the file contents and a file for the name of the file. I cannot seem to restore a file from the recycle bin GUI or delete a file. When I ask it to either of these things it just does nothing.

Local disk recycle bin works just fine.

When I view the recycle bins from command prompt I can move files in and out of each of them. The names are scrambled so this works but would be tricky to find the files I need.

More info: if I navigate to network drives recycle bin folder I can restore their files just fine. The problem seems to be the built-in recycle bin app/function from the local desktop. It seems to detect all available recycle bins but it cannot restore to a network drive. I think this is because it only looks at the local recycle bin folder.

I do not know how to solve this problem but I do at least have a visual way to do it too while keeping the name intact by navigating to network drive bins directly from within file explorer. I need to manually delete the network bin from command prompt though if I want the files gone completely.

Would be good to have the basic functionality with the local bin if there is any idea. I am on Windows 11.

@JF6723 So you're able to recycle files but can't restore or empty the recycle bin? Odd, I haven't encountered that before so unfortunately I don't know of a solution. My only thought is to delete/rename the $RECYCLE.BIN directory from the terminal and try deleting & restoring a file again; maybe something got borked. Could be related to permissions... though probably not, if command prompt works. The Security tab doesn't show up in the Properties for a recycle bin, but you can $(Get-Acl '$RECYCLE.BIN').Access from PowerShell to check anyway. That's about all I can think of right now, I'm afraid.