How can get Maximum Size of Recycle Bin?

Chang Hee Lee

I'm making Winforms App. use Recycle bin.

I retrieve information in the recycle bin, but I can't get is the maximum size.

How do I get the maximum size of recycle bin?

5 Replies

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Vulpes15y ago
Accepted answer
All I can suggest is that you iterate through them and add up the individual capacities, as there doesn't seem to be an API function which will do this for you.

If you're wondering how to associate a particular GUID with a drive letter, then there is an API function, GetVolumeNameForVolumeMountPoint which can do this.

See (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa364994(VS.85).aspx) and also to P/Invoke it from C# (http://www.pinvoke.net/default.aspx/kernel32.getvolumenameforvolumemountpoint).
Chang Hee Lee15y ago
Oh, Thanks XD

However, do you know get maximum size when have multiple hdd partition?

Volume Key have lots of a children key when have 2 more partition.

how can solve it?
Vulpes15y ago
OK, after some research, I think I've figured it out.

Although there doesn't appear to be an API function to get the maximum size of the recycle bin, it is stored in the registry under this key:

HK_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\BitBucket\Volume

Under that there's a sub-key for each drive (identified by its GUID) and under each of those there's a property called MaxCapacity (a DWORD or uint in C#) which gives the maximum size of the recycle bin for that drive in MB.

As I'm sure you'll know, you can get at this property programatically using the Microsoft.Win32.Registry class (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.win32.registry.aspx).
Chang Hee Lee15y ago
Thanks, but I don't want current size.

a Maximum size like under image.
Vulpes15y ago
If you mean its current size, then you can get it by P/Invoking the API function SHQueryRecyleBin (see http://www.pinvoke.net/default.aspx/shell32/shqueryrecyclebin.html?diff=y).

Off the top of my head, I'd have thought that the maximum size of the Recycle Bin would (like any other folder) depend on the file system.