How long do items stay in the SharePoint Online recycle bin?

When users delete files, versions of files, list items, libraries, lists, or folders from a site, the Recycle Bin serves as a safety net. The items are placed in the Recycle Bin when users delete any of these things from a site. In this article, we’ll look at how logs remain in recycling bins and how we may make them last longer. The Site Collection Recycle Bin page allows you to examine and manage deleted items across a site collection. You may examine things that are presently in a user’s Recycle Bin as well as items that have been deleted from a user’s Recycle Bin and sent to the second-stage Recycle Bin, also known as the Site Collection Recycle Bin, via this page. Users who accidentally remove an item from the Recycle Bin can contact you to have it restored to its original place, as long as the item hasn’t passed the server administrator’s original deletion date. Items in the Recycle Bin are automatically removed after 30 days by default. However, what if you want items to stay in the recycling bin for longer so you have more time to think about whether you need certain files from the recycling bin or not. How can you extend the duration of the content in the recycling bin? Follow the steps below to see how.

Step by step process – How to make SharePoint recycle bin retain items for longer

  1. Sign into the “SharePoint Central Administration” app.
  2. Click “Manage web apps” under “Application Management.”
  3. Select the site for which you wish to change the recycling bin settings, then go to “Manage” and click “General Settings.”
  4. Scroll down to the “Recycle Bin” section on the “Web Application General Settings” page.
  5. Extend the duration of “Delete items in the Recycle Bin” longer, or even set it to “never” delete.
  6. Then click on “OK”.

This is only achievable by users of admin status, normal network members will not be able to access this area of editing, primarily due to the consumption of excessive space on the network storage, due to infrequent clean-outs. Admins can edit the duration if they wish or even reduce it if there are too many times in the recycling bin. However, any changes made to the reduction or increase in the recycle bin emptying times will be displayed to the user on the recycle page.

Recycle bin configurations in SharePoint Online

Select “On” or “Off” under “Recycle Bin Status” to define whether all of the web application’s “Recycle Bins” are switched on or off. All of the files in the Recycle Bins will be destroyed if you turn them off. Depending on how full and how many Recycle Bins there are, deleting these files may take a long time.

If you choose After, enter the number of days you want to wait before the Recycle Bins are emptied in the relevant box (that is, the number of days that the items in Recycle Bins remain in a deleted state). The Recycle Bins are never automatically emptied if you choose Never.

You must specify how much disc space is available for the second-stage Recycle Bin as a percentage of the quota granted to the web application when you activate the second-stage Recycle Bin for a web application. For example, if the web application requires 100 megabytes (MB), allocating a 50% limit for the second-stage Recycle Bin allocates 50 MB for the second-stage Recycle Bin and 150 MB for the web application. For the second-stage Recycle Bin limit, you can allocate up to 100%.

Recover a deleted file from SharePoint recycle bin

The file is remapped and stored in the database as code when a user uploads data to SharePoint Online. Data is saved in the data center as an abstraction code that is encrypted and split down to be stored in different locations across the data center. So, how can we restore files from SharePoint Online that have been deleted? Follow the instructions below to find out.

How to recover deleted files from SharePoint Online?

  • First sign in to Office 365.
  • Use the app launcher and navigate to “SharePoint”, and click on it.
  • In SharePoint go to the Site where your files are located.
  • In the menu bar, find and click on your document library.
  • Now click on “Recycle bin”.
  • Select a file hovering over it, and clicking on the ellipse.
  • Then in the top bar click on “Restore”.
  • File you’re looking for is not here, click on “Second-stage recycle bin”.
  • Finally, Repeat steps 6 and 7.

If you select “restore,” the file will be returned to the original place from which it was removed. You may then use and modify the file as you did before it was deleted. If you check after 30 days, your files are likely to have been permanently removed from the SharePoint site; there is no way to restore those files at this time since the actual code that created the file is no longer on the SharePoint database. So ensure any deleted files are restored before 30 days.

In depth – Step by step process – How to make SharePoint recycle bin retain items for longer?

Step by step breakdown:

  • Sign into the “SharePoint Central Administration” app.
  • Click “Manage web apps” under “Application Management.”
  • Select the site for which you wish to change the recycling bin settings, then go to “Manage” and click “General Settings.”
  • Scroll down to the “Recycle Bin” section on the “Web Application General Settings” page.
  • Extend the duration of “Delete items in the Recycle Bin” longer, or even set it to “never” delete.
  • Then click on “OK”.

That’s it for this Blog thank you for taking time out to read our content, please feel free to email our team about how it went if you followed the steps or if you need more help with the questions we answered in this Blog.

Saajid Gangat

Saajid Gangat has been a researcher and content writer at Business Tech Planet since 2021. Saajid is a tech-savvy writer with expertise in web and graphic design and has extensive knowledge of Microsoft 365, Adobe, Shopify, WordPress, Wix, Squarespace, and more! You can connect with Saajid on Linkedin.

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