Add the Recycle Bin to the Taskbar in Windows 7

With a clean install of Windows 7 the only thing that you would normally see on your desktop is a lone icon being the Recycle Bin. Windows Explorer has migrated to the taskbar and Computer (formerly “My Computer”) now lives in the Start Menu. Furthermore, it can be a pain getting to the Recycle Bin when its buried underneath a stack of windows.

Well, there is a way to add a fully functional Recycle Bin to your Windows 7 taskbar with a little effort.

First, right click on the taskbar then click on “Toolbars” then “New toolbar…”.

Create a New Taskbar Toolbar

Then, copy and paste the following text into the folder directory:

%userprofile%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch

… then click on “Select Folder”.

You’ll then see something like this appear in your taskbar:

Adding the Quick Launch Bar Back to Windows 7

What we now need to do is remove all of those shortcuts from the Quick Launch bar (you should have most of them on your taskbar or in your Start Menu anyway). If you right click on “Quick Launch” and then click on “Open Folder” you can delete all of the shortcuts that are currently in there.

Next, we need to add the Recycle Bin into the folder. This is simply a case of dragging the Recycle Bin from the desktop into the folder. Once done, your Quick Launch bar should look like this:

Adding the Recycle Bin to the Quick Launch Folder

Now, we just need to tidy things up to make it blend in with the rest of the task bar. Firstly, we need to unlock the taskbar by right clicking on the taskbar and clicking on “Lock the taskbar” if there is a little tick next to it. Then, right click on “Quick Launch” again and click on “Show Text” which will remove the text. Next, right click on “Quick Launch” once more and click on “Show title” to remove the title from the folder.

You should be left with something looking like this:

Recycle Bin on the Taskbar

The only thing left to do is make the icon larger to make it fit in with the rest of the icons. So, right click on those dotted lines just to the left of the Recycle Bin then click on “View” then “Large Icons”. Then, drag those dotted lines all the way to the right of the taskbar as far as you can go. Finally, we’ll lock the taskbar back down by right clicking on the taskbar and then click on “Lock the taskbar”.

The final result should look like this:

Recycle Bin on the Taskbar (Completed Process)

Now, you can drag stuff to the Recycle Bin to get rid of it or empty it without having to dive back to the desktop.