Recycle Bin and Downloads Folder Data

[artbuc]

Where is the data physically stored, hard drive or RAM? If I let my recycle bin get loaded with deleted documents and/or never delete documents and software downloaded and stored in my Downloads file, will that slow down my PC if I have plenty of unused capacity on my harddrive? Thanks.

[DaveLembke]

Recycle bin is more like a folder that is used as a collection of what should be junk, but its a last chance location for anyone who accidentally deleted a file. Its stored on the hard drive or SSD. ( *files are saved there when deleted unless hard deleted with shift+delete etc. )

RAM is not a location to store anything long term as for on power off unless its a server with battery memory its wiped clean on shutdown.

Its best to check in there every once in a while and flush it out to free up hard drive as part of system trash management.

[Allan]

The recycle bin is a hidden folder on each drive. You can configure the size of the individual folders and on which drives the recycle bin should be active (vs permanently deleting files immediately) by right-clicking on the trash bin icon and selecting "properties".

[patio]

One question...why are you letting it get that loaded ? ?...is this a hoarder syndrome ? ?

[artbuc]

One question...why are you letting it get that loaded ? ?...is this a hoarder syndrome ? ?

Been almost one year since I worked on my SIL's old PC. She was not able to open any web pages using IE or Chrome without getting long running scripts or other script errors. I discovered 226 photos in her Win 7 Recycle Bin and she uses her Download file to store email attachments. Her PC has very limited RAM (512mb) so I wanted to be sure her Bin and Downloads file were on her harddrive. I installed a new harddrive for her which has plenty of capacity. But, I would say there is an element of hoarding going on for sure as she keeps thousands of old emails on her iPad and Verizon server. I have her HD set to auto defrag and that was ok. I have her IE11 browser set to delete upon exit and I manually deleted temporary files, etc on Chrome. I had to put Chrome on her PC because IE would not let her logon to Verizon webmail. Verizon knows this is an issue for some users but does not have a solution except to use a different browser. I ran Malwarebytes, AdwCleaner and JRT and got clean results. Also ran memtest86 to confirm RAM is ok. I disabled script debugging and script error messages.  PC is working now but it is slow as a sloth. It is 12 or so years old and doing about the best it can. Thanks for your responses.