Delete files from shared folder

Question

I am trying to safely delete files from a shared folder hosted on the server. However the file doesn't move to the recycle bin when deleted because I'm not the owner. How do I force the file to be moved to recycle bin instead of being permanently removed?

I couldn't find deleted file in the shadow copy either.

Solution

This is by design the Recycle Bin only stores files deleted from hard drives, not from removable media, such as memory cards and floppy disks. It also doesn't store files deleted from network drives.

Your best bet in this case is to either restore from a backup (assuming this server is backed up) or get an admin on the server in question to try and use an unerase tool (such as data recovery wizard) to recover these files.

As for forcing windows to delete network files to the recycle bin - to my knowledge, this is not possible. The recycle bin is part of your users context, not the filesystems. What you are essentially looking for is the ability to delete a file by first copying it to your machine... which is illogical.

However, there are 3rd party tools which can accomplish this such as Network Recycle Bin Tool. However, for this to work properly, the client needs to be installed on all machines that access this share.

Comments

[Ramhound]

An additional solution is to enable shadow copy on the share drive itself. (The shadow copy solution was from a program manager at MS).