Deleted files do not go to Recycle Bin

I have Parallels Desktop 11.1.2 with installations of Windows 7 and Windows 10. I have reinstalled Parallels Tools several times. In none of my vm's does the recycle bin work to collect deleted files. I have reinstalled Windows and Parallels to no avail.

Has anyone else ever had problems with the Recycle Bin not working to collect deleted files?

Has anyone been able to get it to work again?

thank you,
-deac

 

I've been using Windows 7, Parallels 11 and El Capitan, so I can describe how this works for me. I've read that Windows Libraries are hidden by default on Windows 10, but can be enabled in Folder Options.

I have found that if you access Mac files from Windows through the Windows libraries - Documents, Music, Pictures, Videos - deleted files are moved to the Windows Recycle Bin. You will see Recycle Bins listed for Documents, Music, Pictures and Videos in the Recycle Bin properties. I suspect Parallels adds all those locations in there, or Windows adds them when it sees that some folders were added to the libraries that are not in the usual locations. So, those areas are under Recycle Bin protection. (In a standard Windows install on a PC, the Recycle Bin simply protects your C:\ (and D:\ etc.) drives - it doesn't need to do anything special to protect your libraries, since they are on drives that are already under Recycle Bin protection.)

But if you delete those same Mac files through the mapped drives (Y:\ or Z:\), or through the Network locations (\\Mac\Home and \\Mac\All Files) - they are deleted immediately. Windows does not recognize those areas as having Recycle Bins. That may explain the problem you are seeing.

That means - for the Recycle Bin to protect Mac files, you need to use shared profile and libraries, and not just the basic sharing.

Desktop is a special case, depending on whether or not you merge Mac and Windows desktops. I prefer to not merge my desktops, and haven't found a way to include the Mac desktop in a Windows library, so the only way to access an "unmerged" Mac desktop from Windows is through the mapped drives or network locations. And this means deleting a file from the Mac desktop or subfolders on it through Windows will result in an immediate delete. Unless you find a way to add the Mac desktop to a Windows library, by pulling the same magic that Parallels does to add Mac network locations to the standard Windows libraries, files there have to be deleted with more care. One could move such files to some folder in Documents before deleting them, for instance Documents\Deleted Desktop Items, or move them first to the Windows desktop, or just not leave files on the Mac desktop. (Files on the actual Windows desktop, if you use it, will still go, as usual, to the Recycle Bin, because they are on the protected C:\ drive.)

A merged desktop will probably work differently, but I disable that particular shared profile feature so I don't know.

I hope that wasn't too confusing!

As far as I can tell, Parallels doesn't not document any of this, nor discuss these topics in these forums. And I wouldn't be surprised if this works differently with different versions of Parallels, and different versions of Windows. As undocumented features, the things I've observed are probably subject to change at virtually any time.

But in the meantime this information might actually help somebody? I hope so.

 

----
Paul,
Thank you very much for your response, but so far I've been unable to find a combination that works for my problem.
I think IraF has hit on the root of my problem and I will reply to him with more detail. Perhaps you can read that and maybe get some further insight that can help me.
Thank you very much,
Deac

 

-----
IraF,
Yes, Thank you, you gave some excellent information. I still have a problem but you pointed out what I think is the root of my problem.
That is, I do have the Mac Pictures directory mapped into Windows and happily can add and edit files from either Windows or Mac applications. And when I delete a file using Mac Finder the file does go to the Mac Trash can.

BUT, so far I've been unable to configure so that a file deleted using Windows Explorer (File Manager) is saved either in the Windows Recycle Bin or in Mac Trash can. That's my problem. I like to edit and manipulate photos in Windows and delete from there, but when I make a mistake and want to recover it there is no way as of now that I can recover a file deleted on the Windows side.
I have tried these combinations of settings (rebooting after changing settings):
Action --> Configure --> Options --> Sharing: Share Mac user folders with Windows: --> Configure
Merge Recycle Bin with Trash -- both checked and unchecked
Pictures both checked and unchecked
So your experience of having Pictures, etc., checked causing deleted files to go to the RB is not what I am seeing. Nor does it go to Trash.
I could use Finder to delete and that does send the file to Trash, but it's a pain to open Finder to the correct directory and file; also I have to remember to do it.

You are right I'm sure that it's due to deleting in the mapped directories; the local C: and D: folders do behave correctly.

I will be quite happy if I can use Windows Explorer to delete files and have them go to either or both Recycle Bin or Trash so I can recover when I make an error.

Thank you for any help you can provide.
-deac

 

I think I forgot to mention: for this to work, you have to NOT merge Recycle Bin with Trash. Otherwise that guarantees you will be using Mac Trash, not the Recycle Bin, for all deleted files. People with a preference for how Mac Trash works will prefer that.

It seems that Mac Trash has to be emptied frequently for OS X to safely operate. It is not at all like Recycle Bin, where you can keep files indefinitely. Recycle Bin takes no "space" on your drives beyond the space already pre-allocated for it in Recycle Bin/Properties, a value you can reduce or enlarge at any time, so there is no reason to empty it - ever - unless there are privacy concerns. Otherwise one can just let Windows manage it - when it becomes full, Windows automatically deletes the oldest files to make room for new deleted files. With 1TB and larger hard drives, one can very easily have massive recycle bins that can stored many thousands of deleted files going back years. (I suspect files in the Recycle Bin are always compressed.)

By default Parallels merges Recycle Bin with Trash. To prevent this, go to the VM's configuration, Options tab, Sharing row, Shared Profile section, press Configure button, and deselect Merge Recycle Bin with Trash. Oh, I guess that's the opposite of what Parallels support has suggested!

 

Our last replies overlapped - I wrote mine while you were writing yours, so what I wrote was not in direct response to your last post.

If you delete from a mapped drive or network location the files will go poof - deleted permanently. I don't know if there is any way to avoid that. My NTFS-formatted USB drives currently DO have recycle bins, and they didn't used to on my old PC, but I guess this is configurable. Anyway - these are neither mapped drives nor network locations, which are different animals.

Two suggestions: the word "mapped" is a bit ambiguous. When you say mapped, do you mean you have turned on Shared Profile in the configuration, and press Configure button - are Documents, Pictures, Videos and Music selected?

When you click on a Library, do you see 3 locations? I do. For instance, the Documents library has

\\Mac\Home\Documents
C:\Public\Documents
C:\Users\ira\AppData\Roaming\Local Libraries\Local Documents

The last is a junction pointing to C:\Users\ira\Documents, and I don't know why it is set up that way with a junction. If you turn off Shared Profile, the Documents library points to the usual location.

Another thing you can do is check Recycle Bin properties. (Right click on the bin icon.) In mine I see Documents, Music, Movies and Pictures all listed as having their own Recycle Bins. I don't know how they get there - there is no obvious way to add locations in this dialog. It is also interesting that the Mac name is used for Movies, it doesn't list it as Videos. While the Windows library name is Videos, the top location in that library is \\Mac\Home\Movies.

The actual Recycle Bins for those Mac locations seem to be stored on the Mac. I can see them in Explorer as hidden files with the name $Recycle.Bin. I don't see them in Finder, though, and am not sure why.

Ah - there is one more setting, a Windows setting - to not use Recycle Bin. Maybe that is the problem? That is a checkbox in the Recycle Bin properties.

If you create some files directly on Windows, not on Mac - say in root of C drive, or root of your user folder, any area that is not merged with Mac - and delete it, does it go to Recycle Bin?

 

Ira,
Thanks a million for the very fast response. Nice discussion of RB vs Trash behavior, I didn't know those differences.
Just to confirm, now I have both
"Merge Recycle Bin with Trash" -- unchecked
as well as Pictures checked under configure "Map these Mac user folders to Windows" (Though I do uncheck it at times to test.)

Library Locations:
I finally found where to look in reference to your question "When you click on a Library, do you see 3 locations? I do.". Yes, I have similar entries as you.

It appears that one can add a recycle bin to network drives by going through some steps - I just found this link from 2014, hopefully it will still work. I hope to take time soon to try it out. Since it involves editing the Registry I'll make a copy of my vm to work on. Ha!
https://social.technet.microsoft.co...mapped-network-drives?forum=w8itpronetworking

This is a screenshot from that link showing that he successfully added network drives to RB.


When you refer to "Windows setting - to not use Recycle Bin" do you mean the radio check in the image above to "Don't move files to the RB ..."? Yes, I have that unchecked.
Also, any file residing on the local Windows drives C:\ and D:\ do go to the RB if deleted, so the RB in general works fine for local files.

Your comments have added useful information for me to follow up on and I will try the link information from above to see if that can do the job.

THANKS SO MUCH FOR YOUR INTEREST AND HELP.
-Deac

 

Ira,
PS. Yes, I see these files on the Mac side. In Windows Explorer I see the $RECYCLE.BIN directory and in Properties it shows as Hidden, so that's apparently why we don't see it in Finder. But on the Mac side it does show up in Terminal using the "ls -a" command, so it's only slightly hidden. Also in Terminal I'm able to cd into $RECYCLE.BIN and "ls" shows the same contents as does Windows Explorer.

So $RECYCLE.BIN folder is there on the Mac side but it's not catching my deleted files. At least yet.
-deac

 

In Terminal, ls -l shows that the $RECYCLE.BIN directories in those Mac folders have extended attributes set (the @ in the file attributes). Those attributes can include "hidden." That's probably why Finder doesn't normally see these recycle bins. I think Finder will probably see them if you use the Terminal command:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
killall Finder

Set it to FALSE to revert to normal behavior.

I can cd into those folders in Terminal and see files. I can also see them from Windows if I set Folder Options to show hidden files.

You wrote "Also in Terminal I'm able to cd into $RECYCLE.BIN and "ls" shows the same contents as does Windows Explorer." Does that mean there are folders and/or files in there? If you have anything in your recycle bins, then recycling must have worked at one time for you. Actual files in the recycle bins have been renamed and start with "$".

Probably better to use the Parallels clone feature than to directly duplicate your VM. Parallels Help says:

Clone a Virtual Machine

If you need an exact copy of a virtual machine, you can clone it. A clone is a separate virtual machine fully identical to the original one. To make a clone:

Start Parallels Desktop.

In Parallels Desktop Control Center, select the virtual machine you want to clone (it must be shut down) and choose File > Clone.
Choose where you want to store the clone.

By default, Parallels Desktop stores clones in your Documents > Parallels folder.
Click Save to start cloning the virtual machine.

 

I am facing the same issue on my computer. I transferred 2 movies to my computer from a mobile app cinema box android. After watching the movie I deleted the files. But, they did not go to recycle bin. Tried all the possible solutions but no use.

 

molufy
Have the same problems with that service

 

Hi guys!
Did you manage to resolve this problem?
I've also opened a ticket here: https://forum.parallels.com/threads/normal-delete-function-act-as-permanent-delete.346458/
Maybe someone can help us