Has Windows 10 recently started defaulting to not asking before deleting files?

Question

I just pressed Delete on a file on one of my drives. It surprisingly didn't ask me whether I really wanted to move it to the trash bin, but just did it instantly. This is new behaviour, no? I have certainly not made any such changes.

Just to make sure, I tried several times on my desktop, with both a text document and a directory. Same thing. Just immediately blasted to the trash can. Very scary when I've been relying on the question to prevent me from deleting data by accident since... um... Windows 95?

I noticed an update to Windows 10 the other day. Was this changed in it? If so, why?!

No It's an option in Recycle Bin's properties. There is no point prompting if you are only moving the filename (the name is moved not the file's contents). You can press Ctrl + Z to undo. — user1644677, Feb 15 '22 at 03:18
_"I've been relying on the question to prevent me from deleting data by accident […]"_ - I don't get this. That dialog contained no useful details that would help you decide if the right files were selected except for the file count. Can you please clarify how it was useful for you? — gronostaj, Feb 15 '22 at 09:10
@gronostaj I guess he means "pressing DEL by accident and being able to cancel deletion in the dialog box" — Josh Part, Feb 15 '22 at 15:39
@DetlevCM That's not true. In that scenario Windows will prompt a warning that you're about to permanently delete a file. — MMM, Feb 16 '22 at 09:56
@MMM Most definitely not as that was the behaviour I had on my work laptop cleaning up some large simulation files. - Once the recylcing bin is full, delete = delete from disk right away without any warning. — DetlevCM, Feb 16 '22 at 14:37
Remember to always have backups of any important files, regardless of any trash bin or dialog safeguards. If there's more than one hour of work in it, it's worth having an off-site copy... — leftaroundabout, Feb 16 '22 at 15:31

u1686_grawity · Answer 1 · 2022-02-15T08:54:39.290

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This is new behaviour, no?

Well, it's new behaviour since Windows 8.0.

I went through my collection of Mostly Legitimate Windows ISOs and installed all of them.

The option to enable/disable confirmations when sending files to Recycle Bin has been available ever since Windows 95 introduced the feature in general, but it was enabled by default up until Windows 7 (I tried SP1). However, fresh installations of Windows 8.0 and all later versions (8.1 all the way to 10.21H2) have the confirm prompt disabled by default.

Permanent deletion with Shift+Del or files too large for the Recycle Bin will still result in a confirmation dialog regardless of this setting. (Though oddly, if the entire Recycle Bin is manually turned off, prompts still remain disabled even though deletion is now permanent...)

Modern UI design seems to avoid confirm prompts for actions that are easily undone (e.g. restoring from Recycle Bin), so that when a confirmation dialog does show up, it actually means something important – and isn't as likely to get dismissed without even looking (alert fatigue).

For example, if the user gets prompted for all recycled files and habitually click "Yes", they're likely to never notice that sometimes the dialog says "File is too large for Recycle Bin, do you want to permanently delete it".

edited Feb 15 '22 at 08:54

answered Feb 15 '22 at 08:07

u1686_grawity

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For the sake of completeness: Windows 8 was released on August 1, 2012 – gronostaj Feb 15 '22 at 09:14
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+1 for the dedication of completing all those installs just for screen shots. – Criggie Feb 15 '22 at 11:19
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You wrote "*Modern UI design seems to avoid confirm prompts for actions that are easily undone*". But you also said that if Recycle Bin is turned off then there is no prompt. Totally inconsistent UI design, no? – user21820 Feb 15 '22 at 19:26
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@user21820 I assume a user who deliberately goes out of their way to outright DISABLE Recycling Bin most likely will not benefit from a confirmation box. On Linux you can readily perform `sudo rm -rf /` to wipe your drive and it isn't going to ask you anything. It's sort of the similar idea I guess. – Nelson Feb 16 '22 at 02:56
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@Nelson No you can't: "rm: it is dangerous to operate recursively on ‘/’ rm: use --no-preserve-root to override this failsafe" – Nye Feb 16 '22 at 11:05
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@Nye just add an asterisk at the end... – Ruslan Feb 16 '22 at 12:48
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@user21820: Right, it’s certainly an exception to the general principle — that’s is why this answer says “oddly” when mentioning it. But I’d hardly call it “totally inconsistent UI design” — the only reason this one point stands out is because the rest of the system has a decent baseline level of consistency. – PLL Feb 16 '22 at 16:32
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@Nelson: It is **not** similar, in my opinion. One is just a single key-press, which could be accidental. Anyway, I don't have any problems with your answer. It's just that I don't think it's entirely fair to talk about (good) UI design as an *explanation* for the phenomenon observed here (i.e. no prompt on move to recycle bin) when there is also very bad UI design (i.e. still no prompt if recycle bin is disabled) for exactly the same thing. – user21820 Feb 17 '22 at 04:16
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@Fiksdal plausible, but line 2 says "I .... installed all of them" – Criggie Feb 17 '22 at 09:52
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@Criggie haha, forgive my laziness. – Fiksdal Feb 17 '22 at 10:28
@Criggie - I've said it before, if something's worth doing, it's worth doing with **massive overkill** – Valorum Feb 17 '22 at 12:30
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God heavens, the screenshot for windows XP contains MSN in the system tray...you just unlocked a memory for me – mrbolichi Feb 17 '22 at 14:08
I commend your effort but jesus christ dude... How long did that take? – ScottishTapWater Feb 17 '22 at 14:31
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@Valorum Maxim 37. "There is no 'overkill' ......" – Criggie Feb 17 '22 at 18:30
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@user21820 Opening up the Recycle Bin settings, turning off the Recycle Bin, saving the settings, and then hitting the delete button is hardly "a single key-press which could be accidental". (Although not having a prompt when Recycle Bin is off is probably not bad design but simply missed requirements.) – user3067860 Feb 17 '22 at 20:39

score 9 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 15 '22 at 21:27

Windows Update is capable of changing settings without prior notice.

If this setting was changed, here are the places to look, where this confirmation could have been disabled.

Right-click the Recycle Bin, select Properties and verify that "Display delete confirmation dialog" is set.
Run gpedit.msc and navigate to
User Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\File Explorer.
Verify the setting of the policy named "Display confirmation dialog when deleting files".
Run regedit and navigate to the key
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer. Right-click the right pane, select New > DWORD (32-bit) Value and name this as ConfirmFileDelete. The value data should be 1 to enable.

Reference (and source of the images): How to Enable or Disable Delete Confirmation Dialog on Windows 10?

This is the kind of answer I'm actually expecting. – iBug Feb 17 '22 at 11:11 — iBug, Feb 17 '22 at 11:11

score 3 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 15 '22 at 03:17

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I see the same exact behavior on my machine (19043.1526).

I can only guess that they decided that the dialog was pointless because you can get the files back.

I myself do not find the dialog pointless.. often.. I am like "OH SHOOT! -- WHOOPS -- CANCEL"..

To put the behavior back the way it was, right click on the recycle bin -> Properties -> Check "Display Delete Confirmation Dialog".

Yes, I agree that this was bad to change the default without asking but Microsoft will do what Microsoft does. :P

answered Feb 15 '22 at 03:17

Señor CMasMas

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Without the dialog you can just CTRL+Z and the files come back. – J... Feb 15 '22 at 13:55
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@J... I have a love/hate relationship with Ctrl+Z in the Windows GUI. It's great that it merely exists but holy crap does it suck when you don't know what it's doing. Did I undelete a file? Did I revert a filename somewhere? Did I undo a file copy? A small message like "file XYZ has been moved from the Recycle Bin back to C:\whatever\path" would be a such a tremendous boon. Right now Ctrl+Z is more of a "Is this going to do what I think it will do? If not then I'll have to remember to undo what it did once it gets to undoing what I intended." – MonkeyZeus Feb 15 '22 at 14:23
@MonkeyZeus It undoes literally the last thing you did. I would submit that if you're not even aware of what the last thing you did was that you probably have deeper problems... navigating the universe generally is a challenge under such conditions. ;) – J... Feb 15 '22 at 14:24
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@J... My problem is I'm not a keyboard pecker and the realization that something needs to be undone isn't discovered till a minimum of 10 actions later. – MonkeyZeus Feb 15 '22 at 14:25
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@J it undoes the last thing you did that's supported by undo. That's not necessarily the last thing you did. Sometimes it undoes the last thing I did in a much broader context than I expect, too. In Excel I'd expect it to undo the last thing I did in "this workbook", but it undoes the last thing I did in "any of the open workbooks" – Carl Kevinson Feb 15 '22 at 14:46
Well, alert fatigue is a well established problem in UI)/UX design, so it makes sense to *only* show alerts when it *really matters* so as to not train the user to mindlessly click "yes" without even realizing what the dialog says. – Polygnome Feb 15 '22 at 14:50
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@J... Enjoy, https://superuser.com/q/809576/259665 – MonkeyZeus Feb 15 '22 at 16:10
@MonkeyZeus *"I didn't notice the application was out of focus"* So, yeah, pushing buttons when you're not paying attention has consequences... – J... Feb 15 '22 at 16:13
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@J... Wanting to see improvement is a problematic concept to you? Existence of a feature doesn't mean it's adequate. – MonkeyZeus Feb 15 '22 at 16:21
@MonkeyZeus Look, all I was saying was that if you're in explorer and you suddenly go "OH SHOOT! WHOOPS" because you're acutely aware that you just deleted a file by accident you can pretty safely just push CTRL+Z to undo it. This answer is waxing on the benefits of the "Cancel" button - I'm just saying that if you KNOW you've just deleted something that undo works just as well. Faster, even. – J... Feb 15 '22 at 16:23
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OMG @MonkeyZeus !! You created a party in my answer comment section! :) !! CTRL-Z vs the dialog is that without the dialog, I DONT KNOW that I just deleted something. Perhaps my stupid cat just walked across my keyboard and deleted my PrON. – Señor CMasMas Feb 15 '22 at 17:06
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@SeñorCMasMas Forgive me for the antics! https://i.giphy.com/media/lkbNG2zqzHZUA/giphy.webp – MonkeyZeus Feb 15 '22 at 17:15
@MonkeyZeus Try opening up the Recycle Bin, selecting the files you want un-deleted, and pressing the "restore" button. Then you won't have any questions. – user3067860 Feb 17 '22 at 20:39
@user3067860 Thanks but I think you've missed the boat. Ctrl+Z doesn't just undo deletes, it tries to undo any actions which you've taken in Windows Explorer. – MonkeyZeus Feb 17 '22 at 20:42
@MonkeyZeus Yes, that's what you don't like about it...so when you want to restore files, don't use ctrl+z, go to the recycle bin and restore them...the restore button only does one thing, you won't have any questions about what it did. – user3067860 Feb 17 '22 at 22:08
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@CarlKevinson By contrast, in LibreOffice 5, C-z undoes the most recent undoable action *in the current sheet*, even if the most recent undoable action was in a different sheet or a different file. – Rosie F Feb 18 '22 at 07:25

score 3 · Answer 4 · answered Feb 15 '22 at 22:42

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Not sure about other folks, but for all of my windows machines the initial default setting has always been with no confirmation prompt if "deleting" a file i.e. moving to the Recycle Bin. The prompt can be turned on in the Recycle Bin properties. But I do always see a prompt for confirming if I select a file and press SHIFT+DEL to delete it permanently. Not sure if there is a setting to change that somewhere. But it is good to have it on all the time. For moving files to the Recycle Bin, not sure if it is really necessary to have the prompt for confirming turned on - it just adds another step. If you move something accidently to the Recycle Bin you can always restore it to the original folder.

answered Feb 15 '22 at 22:42

JSSmith

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Of course, in the Recycle bin properties there is another option where you can A) opt for not moving to the Recycle Bin at all. Plus then you can either B) leave the confirmation prompt On or C) turn it off. if you have A and B, then when you DEL you will get a confirmation prompt, and if you SHIFT+DEL you will still get a confirmation prompt. If you have A and C, you will not get a confirmation prompt if you DEL and you will not get the confirmation prompt if you SHIFT+DEL. – JSSmith Feb 15 '22 at 23:03
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I agree that having the prompt on even for the case of just moving to the Recycle Bin is useful for the case when you may accidently hit delete and something moves to the recycle bin without you realizing it. – JSSmith Feb 15 '22 at 23:09

Has Windows 10 recently started defaulting to not asking before deleting files?

4 Answers4