How to Bring Back the Confirm Deletion Message Box in Windows 8

Windows 8 is all about making it easier to get things done. (Unless, of course, you wanted to shut down Windows 8, but that’s another story.) Take for instance, the Confirm Deletion message box that appeared every time I wanted to send an item to the Recycle Bin in Windows 7.

In Windows 8 this additional step has been made redundant. So when you delete a file or a shortcut from the desktop, it simply disappears into the Recycle Bin. While this is great news for me, there may be users who tend to be a little careless while deleting stuff and find that message box particularly useful; a sort of check before throwing away something that might be important. In this post, such users can bring back the message box in Windows 8. In just a few steps, see how you can bring back the Confirm Deletion message box in this Windows 8 tutorial.

How to Bring Back Confirm Deletion Message Box in Windows 8

1. Right-click the Recycle Bin and choose Properties.

2. In the Recycle Bin Properties dialog box, enable the Display delete confirmation dialogue checkbox and click OK.

The next time you delete a file from any location, the confirmation message box will appear.

Note: Irrespective of whether you bring back the message box or not, when you delete stuff from the Recycle Bin, you will always get a message alert checking to confirm if you want to permanently remove files from the Recycle Bin.

Of course if you are a very prudent and alert Windows 8 power user or one who always uses Shift+Delete to remove files completely from the system without reverting to the Recycle Bin, you can even tell Windows 8 to perform the action by default.

Simply head over back to the Recycle Bin Properties dialog box, and select the Don’t move files to the Recycle Bin. Remove files immediately when deleted option.

But it would be wise to enable that as mistakes always happen and you wouldn’t want to lose something you worked on for hours, just to save on a single click action.

Another feature you’ll notice with the Recycle Bin Properties dialog box is the the ability to reduce the size of the bin. Just change the values in the dialog if you think it needs changing.

Was this little tip useful to you? Do you feel more comfortable using the Confirm Deletion message box?