Ever had lots of large files on your Windows PC that you had to trash, but you wanted to skip putting them in the Recycle Bin and enduring the often lengthy process of emptying the Recycle Bin later?
Instead of dragging your files to the Recycle Bin or just hitting the Delete key, hold down the Shift key when you delete them — Select the files within Windows Explorer or My Computer, hold down the Shift key, and then right-click and select Delete from the Shortcut menu. This will bypass the Recycle Bin.
Just make sure you are certain of your delete action. Skipping the Recycle Bin greatly reduces your chance of recovery in the event of a mistake. While there are plenty of undelete utilities, they can often take hours to run and there is no guarantee that you will recover your lost data.
Author’s Note: This is one of those simple tips that most people seem to know about already, but is a great eye-opener to those few that haven’t heard of it yet!
Great tip!