The recycle bin is the backbone of desktop tidiness. It holds and clears out all our system’s trash. Any user who favors added desktop neatness may try to pin this icon to the computer’s taskbar to improve on-screen presentability. Unfortunately, Windows does not allow this.

The recycle bin cannot be pinned to the taskbar or the system tray. It is therefore cornered as much as possible to achieve the desired desktop neatness – which again, is a compromise. Though pinning the recycle bin directly to the taskbar is forbidden, there’s always a way around the problem.

In this guide, we’ll show how you can successfully pin the recycle bin to your taskbar and avoid cornering the icon or compromising on a neat desktop.

Create a Recycle Bin Shortcut

The first step to pining the recycle bin to the taskbar is creating a shortcut for the recycle bin on the desktop.

For this, double-finger tap or right-click on an empty spot on your desktop screen. Select ‘New’ from the menu, and further click on ‘Shortcut’.

You’ll now see a ‘Create Shortcut’ dialog box. Copy-paste or type out the following location in the ‘Type the location of the item’ text field and then click on the ‘Next’ button.

explorer.exe shell:RecycleBinFolder

Next, type ‘Recycle Bin’ in the ‘Type a name for this shortcut’ field and hit the ‘Finish’ button.

Customizing the Shortcut

Just having a shortcut is nowhere close to a recycle bin shortcut let alone pinning the same to the taskbar. To make the shortcut look like the recycle bin, double-finger tap or right-click on the new shortcut and select ‘Properties’ from the menu.

You can also hold Alt and Enter to open the shortcut’s properties.

You will direct to the ‘Shortcut’ tab of the ‘Recycle Bin Properties’ dialog box. Stay on this tab and click the ‘Change Icon’ button.

The icons you see at first are not ‘Recycle Bin’ icons. To find an apt icon, input the following in the ‘Look for icons in this file’ text field’ – %SystemRoot%\system32\imageres.dll. Hit Enter or click ‘OK’.

Side-scroll through the icons to find the trashcan icon. There are two trashcan icons – an empty one and a filled one. Choose your icon and click the ‘OK’ button or hit Enter.

Click the ‘Apply’ button on the ‘Recycle Bin Properties’ dialog box to apply the changes. Then, click ‘OK’ to close the box.

A recycle bin replica now sits on your desktop screen.

Pinning Recycle Bin to the Taskbar

Now, the final step – pinning the recycle bin to the taskbar. Right-click or double-finger tap on the new recycle bin icon and select ‘Show more options’ from the menu.

Choose ‘Pin to taskbar’ in the following menu.

The recycle bin is now pinned to your taskbar!

Unpinning Recycle Bin From Taskbar

If you want to unpin the trashcan icon from your taskbar, simply double-finger tap or right-click on it and select ‘Unpin from taskbar’.

The recycle bin is now out of your taskbar.

Removing the Original Recycle Bin From the Desktop

When we said “added desktop neatness”, we meant to get rid of the recycle bin icon that is apparently irremovable from the desktop screen. The aim of pinning the recycle bin to the taskbar was to avoid cornering it and somehow removing it from the desktop radar. It would seem rather pointless to have two recycle bin icons.

The recycle bin cannot be removed by the traditional manner of removing icons from the desktop screen. It’s a vital function of the desktop and hence requires a different process. Here’s how you can remove the original recycle bin from your desktop screen.

Right-click or double-finger tap on an empty space on your desktop screen. Select ‘Personalize’ from the menu.

Click the ‘Themes’ tile on the ‘Personalization’ settings screen.

Scroll through the ‘Themes’ screen to find the ‘Related settings’ section. Here, click the ‘Desktop icon settings’ tile.

You will see a ‘Desktop icon settings’ dialog box. Here, the ‘Recycle Bin’ option will be ticked by default, click the tiny box in front of the option to uncheck it. Then, click ‘Apply’ and hit ‘OK’ to apply the changes and close the dialog box.

You will notice that the recycle bin is no longer visible on your desktop screen, but the pinned recycle bin remains and you can use the function via this taskbar icon.

That’s how you can pin the stubborn recycle bin to your taskbar and enjoy complete desktop neatness with zero loopholes or corners with icons. Hope you found our guide useful!