Synology Recycle Bin Empty: Automating the Cleanup

Synology NAS units include a built-in Recycle Bin on shared folders, mirroring the familiar Windows behaviour — deleted files land there rather than being wiped immediately, letting you recover accidental deletions. Left unmanaged, though, it can quietly consume a significant chunk of your storage over time.

Automating It With Task Scheduler

1. Log in to your Synology DiskStation Manager (DSM) admin portal.
2. Open Control Panel.
3. Go to Task Scheduler.
4. Create a new scheduled task to empty the Recycle Bin, and set it to run on whatever cadence suits you — daily, weekly, or monthly, depending on how quickly your Recycle Bin tends to fill up.

Once saved, the task runs automatically on your chosen schedule, keeping the Recycle Bin’s disk usage under control without you needing to check on it manually.

Emptying It Manually

1. Log in to DSM and open Control Panel.
2. Go to Shared Folder.
3. Select the relevant shared folder, click Action, and choose Empty all Recycle Bins.

This immediately clears the Recycle Bin contents for that shared folder — useful for a one-off cleanup between scheduled runs, or if you need space back right away.

Still Accurate on Current DSM (Updated for 2026)

DSM 7.x remains Synology’s current major release line as of 2026 (DSM 7.4 being the latest at time of writing), and Control Panel > Task Scheduler is still exactly where you’d find this today — nothing about the GUI path above has moved.

A Scriptable Alternative via SSH

If you’d rather script this than rely on the GUI scheduler — useful if you’re managing several Synology units and want one consistent cleanup mechanism — a shared folder with Recycle Bin enabled stores its deleted items in a hidden #recycle subfolder at the root of that share. Synology doesn’t officially document a supported command-line equivalent, but connecting via SSH and clearing the contents of that folder (for example with rm -rf on its contents, run carefully and only against the specific share you intend) achieves the same result as the GUI’s “Empty all Recycle Bins” action. Treat this as an unofficial, community-verified approach rather than a Synology-supported one, and test it against a non-critical share first.

Resources

• disk space