Where is the recycle bin on your Samsung phone, how to empty it or recover files

On the phones Samsung Galaxy, whenever you use the built-in My Files or Gallery apps, there is a trash can where files, photos, and other items are deleted by default, as long as the trash is turned on. And first-time owners often ask questions about this feature.

The following instructions detail where the recycle bin is located on the Samsung phone, separately for the file and photo bin, how to delete or restore files from it, enable or disable the recycle bin, and additional information that may be helpful.

Samsung Recycle Bin in My Files app

When deleting files using the "My Files" file manager on the Samsung Galaxy phone, a pop-up notification "Move file to Trash?" Appears. or "Move folder to trash?" and most of the time the question of where the trash is is related to this particular app. The answer is simple:

1. To open the recycle bin and view its contents, click the menu button (three dots at the top right of the screen) and select "Recycle Bin". If you don't have it, you have to activate it in the settings, see below for more details.
2. In fact, the files and folders in the Recycle Bin are stored in a hidden folder on the system (hidden files can be activated in the "My Files" application settings) on the internal memory:

   Android / data / com.sec.android.app.myfiles / files / trash

And now some features to keep in mind if there is a problem with the recycle bin on your Samsung:

• To the Recycle Bin works, it has to be activated. To turn it on or off, in the My Files app, go to Settings and use the switch located in Trash in the File Management section.
• Files deleted in the recycle bin are stored as My Files data in the folder whose path was previously specified. If you use a tool to empty the cache and data of the applications, this cleaning can "take" the contents of the recycle bin. As a result, you may not find your files when you need to restore them.

How to delete or recover files from the recycle bin

The purpose of the recycle bin on your Samsung phone is to allow easy recovery of deleted files. If, on the other hand, you want to eliminate this possibility, you can empty the trash completely or delete individual files and folders from it:

1. Open the recycle bin via Menu - Recycle Bin in the «My Files» application.
2. To restore individual files, click "Edit", mark the desired files and folders and click "Restore" at the bottom. You can also mark items with a long hold, without pressing "Change".
3. To delete the trash completely, press the "Delete" button.
4. If you want to delete individual files and folders from the recycle bin, use the same method as in the first step, but after selecting the files, press "Delete".

Photos Recycle Bin in Gallery

Samsung's Gallery app also has a trash can for deleted photos and other images. Its use does not differ from that of the recycle bin for files:

1. To open the recycle bin, press the Gallery app menu button and open the recycle bin item.
2. In the trash, by touching "Edit" you can select the photos you want and then restore or delete them. The restoration is done to the same location in the phone memory where the photo was originally stored.
3. If the "Trash" option does not appear, you can enable it: open the "Settings" option in the same menu, find the "Trash" switch and set it to "On".
4. The actual location of the files in the Gallery Recycle Bin is the system folder with the application data

   Android / data / com.sec.android.gallery3d / files / .trash

   The files in this folder are not jpeg photos normal. If you clear the Gallery cache and data, you may also lose the contents of the recycle bin.