# Empty Recyle Bin via script in Ignition

**URL:** <https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/empty-recyle-bin-via-script-in-ignition/27477>\
**Category:** Ignition\
**Created:** [August 15, 2019, 3:22pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/empty-recyle-bin-via-script-in-ignition/27477 "2019-08-15T15:22:07Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Peter.Dmitriev](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@Peter.Dmitriev](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/Peter.Dmitriev)\
**Post date:** [August 15, 2019, 3:22pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/empty-recyle-bin-via-script-in-ignition/27477/1 "2019-08-15T15:22:07Z")

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Hello,

Is there way to programmatically empty recycle bin on the computer that runs Ignition client?

This method doesn’t work:

```auto
import winshell
winshell.recycle_bin().empty(confirm=False, show_progress=False, sound=False)

```

There is no winshell module within Ignition.

Wondering if there is other way to do it?

Thank you,  
Peter,

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**Author:** ![paul-griffith](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/paul-griffith/32/37249_2.png) [@paul-griffith](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/paul-griffith)\
**Post date:** [August 15, 2019, 5:08pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/empty-recyle-bin-via-script-in-ignition/27477/2 "2019-08-15T17:08:08Z")

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Modern Windows will give you a UAC prompt before successfully removing anything from the recycle bin, so I doubt this will work, but you could try `system.util.execute` combined with one of the methods from this post: [https://www.windows-commandline.com/empty-recycle-bin-command-line/](https://www.windows-commandline.com/empty-recycle-bin-command-line/)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Peter.Dmitriev](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@Peter.Dmitriev](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/Peter.Dmitriev)\
**Post date:** [August 15, 2019, 5:43pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/empty-recyle-bin-via-script-in-ignition/27477/3 "2019-08-15T17:43:03Z")

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Yeah, those methods don’t work thru `system.util.execute`. Thanks for looking into this Paul @paul-griffith.

I may just configure recycle bin to not accept anything, should work for the application.

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**Author:** ![JordanCClark](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/jordancclark/32/83362_2.png) [@JordanCClark](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/JordanCClark)\
**Post date:** [August 15, 2019, 7:10pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/empty-recyle-bin-via-script-in-ignition/27477/4 "2019-08-15T19:10:48Z")

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I like this one, personally.

> **[Automatically Delete Files Older Than 30 Days From Recycle Bin In Windows 10](https://www.intowindows.com/automatically-delete-files-older-than-30-days-from-recycle-bin-in-windows-10/)**
>
> On a PC running Windows 10, when you delete a file by choosing a file and hitting the Delete key, or right-clicking on file and then clicking Delete

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![nminchin](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/nminchin/32/6911_2.png) [@nminchin](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/nminchin)\
**Post date:** [May 15, 2020, 1:38pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/empty-recyle-bin-via-script-in-ignition/27477/5 "2020-05-15T13:38:19Z")

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You’ll need to execute it via CMD:  
`system.util.execute(["cmd", "/c rmdir /q /s %systemdrive%\$Recycle.bin"])`