Among the peeves I have with Vista and Windows 7 is that they do not show the cumulative amount of data in the Recycle Bin. I can sort by details and see the size of the individual files, but not the total amount. Select All > Properties does not seem to work. Activating the status bar just shows the number of files.

One workaround I've been using is to perform a Disk Cleanup which will display the cumulative amount of data in the Recycle Bin, but I don't want to have to go through that every time.

What am I missing? Does anyone have any suggestions?

Never thought about it myself. But I just tried a couple things, and other than disk cleanup, nada.

The only thing I found with a GIS is this:
http://www.aerotaskforce.com/view/297

but it didn't work or me when I only had a couple items in the trashcan.

Oh Alan!

I get to help you for a change.

Open the recycle bin and select 1 file, go to edit/select all and then read the total in the status bar.

That doesn't work for me....

On my Compaq laptop with Vista Home Premium it adds total items selected and total size of those files/folders.

How much is in the trash? Can you get to around 3-4 items and see if it still does it? Home Premium here as well.

Currently 7 folders and 2 files listed in the recycle bin.

Strange, if I only highlight the folders there is no total size. As long as 1 file is also highlighted then the total of all highlighted items will show.

Ah ha! That's the difference for me. If I have a folder included with the select, I will not get a total size! I currently have 1 folder and 3 files. I do get a total size if I only select the 3 files.

On mine as long as I include 1 file I get the total size of the file plus the size of whatever folders I also select.

Same here. If I have a folder in the recycle bin the total size is not displayed in the status bar. If I choose individual files & select one by one the cumulative size will start to increase, but as soon as I select a folder the size is not displayed. Can't choose more than one folder and view the properties either.

On Windows Server 2008, I am able to select folders in the recycle bin and it'll add to the total size in the status bar.

Here's something else you can try.
Open a command prompt, goto C:\$Recycle.bin
Execute: dir /s *

At the end of the output, you'll see:

Thanks Krunk. It works, but there's one drawback. If the system has multiple partitions (like mine) and I delete files & folders from the different partitions I'll need to access each partition individually via the command prompt and execute the dir /s * command.

For example, I deleted some folders from C: and some from F:
C:\$RECYCLE.BIN>dir /s * shows the files marked for deletion from C:
F:\$RECYCLE.BIN>dir /s * shows the files marked for deletion from F:

However I didn't think of accessing the recycle bin this way. On systems with one partition it works great. Thanks for the tip

can't you just dump the bin, like on garbage day?

The geek in me likes to see the amount of data being deleted.
Similarly, I also weigh my garbage the night before pickup

wow must be some scale you have there!

There's a program called Complete Cleanup that will tell you that info.
http://www.tucows.com/preview/215085