Configure Recycle Bin settings in Sharepoint 2010

Recycle Bins are used to help users protect and recover data.Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 supports two stages of Recycle Bins: the first-stage Recycle Bin and second-stage Recycle Bin.

When a user deletes an item, the item is automatically sent to the first-stage Recycle Bin. By default, when an item is deleted from the first-stage Recycle Bin, the item is sent to the second-stage Recycle Bin. A site collection administrator can restore items from the second-stage Recycle Bin.

You turn on and configure Recycle Bins at the Web application level. By default, Recycle Bins are turned on in all the site collections in a Web application.

 Note:  You cannot perform this task by using Windows PowerShell cmdlets. You can use the Stsadm command-line tool or the SharePoint Central Administration Web site instead.

To configure Recycle Bin settings by using Central Administration

Verify that the user account that is performing this procedure is a member of the Farm Administrators SharePoint group.

=> On the SharePoint Central Administration Web site, click Application Management.

=> On the Application Management page, click Manage Web Applications.

=> Click the Web application for which you want to configure Recycle Bin settings. The ribbon becomes

      active.

=> On the ribbon, click the General Settings drop-down menu, and then click General Settings.

=> On the Web Application General Settings page, in the Recycle Bin section, you can configure the

      following settings:

You can set the Recycle Bins for the Web application to be On or Off. By default, Recycle Bins are turned on.

Note: 
If you turn off the Recycle Bins, any existing items in both the first and second-stage Recycle Bins are deleted. Depending on how much data is contained in the Recycle Bins, deleting these items can take a long time.

You can specify a time after which items in the Recycle Bins are deleted, or you can specify that these items should never be deleted. By default, items are deleted after 30 days.

You can specify a percentage of live site quota for second-stage deleted items. The default setting is 50 percent. You can also turn off second-stage Recycle Bins. If you select Off, site collection administrators cannot recover items deleted from end-user Recycle Bins.The second-stage Recycle Bin quota percentage must be a value from 1 through 500.

7.After you have finished configuring the Recycle Bins, click OK.