So yesterday, I ran CCleaner (the first time in many years) an had the option "clean recyclin bin" checked. It ran and it was cleaning out the recyclin bin, but when i checked the folder recyclin bin under C:/ drive, the folder reported it was empty, 0KB. CCleaner reported after it was done it cleaned over 130MB out in that folder. I just want to know what CCleaner was cleaning out in that folder and if I should be worried or not?
Are you running CCleaner with winapp2.ini?
No. It was just CCleaner at the time. I had just installed it and ran CCleaner by itself to do some tests.
The $Recycle.Bin folder is normally hidden and subfolders within it are no indication of the actual content of what you see as the Recycle Bin (either as the Desktop icon or the Windows Explorer entry). All you see is 'your' recycle bin.
Each drive will have a $Recycle.Bin folder so maybe CC cleaned out the 'global' recycle bin.
For example, I had stuff in my recycle bin, ran CC, it removed it, ran it again, it found nothing but if I look in $Recycle.Bin there are still 4 subfolders starting with "S-1-5-21-<nnnnnnnnn>". These are security identifiers of the user accounts on the system and corresponds to 'their' recycle bins.
I would not let any program delete my Recycle Bin. I do it myself, deciding what has to go and what has to stay, until such time as I am satisfied that the entry/entries are absolutely of no further value in being kept.
The basic purpose of the Recycle Bin is to provide a temporary staging post for deleted items instead of a "gone forever" situation, as a safe house until you are satisfied that the dumped items are of no further value. It is provided for YOU to decide life or death of the contents, not some robot program, otherwise the items may as well have been deleted in the first place.
Whatever is the point in letting a program simply wipe such a safety file clean willy-nilly ? On several occasions I have found that items in the Recycle Bin have been erroneously placed there and they have caused other programs to fail. In these cases I have traced them and restored them. They would have been gone forever on a mass delete conducted by some impartial program and the link programs would have been useless..
Good management ensures that the absorbed capacity of the Recycle Bin does not get out of control.
Most computer geeks will advise NOT to use any cleaner program without being personally selective on what is being cleaned. Just to press a button on any of these cleaner programs is pure Gung-Ho strategy.