For this blog we have created a simple hierarchy of a site collection with a team site as the top level site template and a sub site based on the blank site template. We have added a document library to the sub site and populated it with 2 Microsoft Word 2010 documents. We have uploaded 10 Microsoft Word 2010 documents into the Shared Documents document library of the top level team site.

We click on the link at the top of the Shared Documents Web Part to take us to the document library. Of course we could have clicked on the link in the quick launch as well.

We click on the Documents tab of the SharePoint 2010 Document Library user interface to change the ribbon into the mode to interact with one or more of the documents in the document library. Notice how the ribbon area changes from showing the bread crumb navigation control, to displaying the icons used to interact with the objects in this particular container (document library).

In SharePoint 2010 we now have the ability to work with multiple documents at once even in a Standard View. Some of the options are not available when we select multiple documents however Delete Document is still available. We will select documents number 6 – 10 by selecting the check boxes to the left of the items as shown here, and then clicking on the Delete Document Icon in the ribbon.

We will go ahead and click ok on the dialog box asking if we want to send these items to the site Recycle Bin. Notice the terminology referring to the 'site' Recycle Bin. To a Developer, Farm Administrator, or Site Collection the word site is often used when referring to a Site Collection. To most users it is referring to a SharePoint 2010 SPWeb object which is what they get to interact with when they type in a url and are taken to a location in SharePoint. Ironically enough in this case the items will be sent to the 'end user' recycle bin. It's nothing to be concerned with from an operational perspective, it's just a little confusing when you star t with SharePoint 2010.

The documents we deleted have been removed from the Shared Documents document library. We now see only the remaining 5 documents in the all items view.

To look at the contents of the end user recycle bin you simply click on the link in the quick launch bar 'Recycle Bin' which is shown with the same icon most Microsoft Windows users are familiar with.

When we clicked on the Recycle Bin link in the quick launch bar we were taken to the recycle bin. This is often referred to as the 'first stage recycle bin'. Depending on the settings that the Farm Administrator has configured, items will generally remain in this area for up to 30 days (configurable by Farm Admin) and then they will be automatically emptied. From here you can do several things.

1. Nothing – if you do nothing most likely the items will be deleted after 30 days.

2. Select and then delete one or more of the items. In which case they will be moved to the Site Collection Recycle bin for the remainder of their 30 day period.

3. Select and then restore one or more items. In which case they will be returned to their original location.

The next few steps will outline deleting and restoring items from here.

To restore an item to its original location simply select the item(s) (check the box next to it (them)) and click on Restore Selection.

We have chosen to restore recyclebinBlog07.docx to its original location.

We are presented with a warning dialog box to make sure we want to proceed with the Restore of our item. We do so we click OK.

The item, recyclebinBlog07.docx has now been moved to its original location and no longer appears in the all items view of the Recycle Bin. In order to verify this we will click on the Shared Documents link in the quick launch bar to make sure its back in it's original location.

We can see that the item has been properly restored to its original location. We then click the Recycle Bin link again so we can try the Delete Selection option which will move our item to the Site Collection Recycle Bin.

We will now select all of the remaining documents except recyclebinBlog10.docx, and this time we'll choose Delete Selection which will place them into the 'second stage' or Site Collection recycle bin for the remainder of their initial 30 day period. (Note: By clicking the check box to the left of the Type column we could have selected all items.) We then click Delete Selection.

We are presented with an Are you sure dialog box. In our case we are sure so we will choose OK. This will move the selected items to the 'second stage' (Site Collection) recycle bin. From there a Site Collection Administrator can restore items or delete items.

We can see that is only one item left in our Recycle Bin. At this point if we are Site Collection Administrators we can go into the Site Collection Recycle Bin and Restore or Delete items from there but for now we will go to a Sub Site and put some items into the 'end user' recycle bin. We click on the SubSite link in the quick launch bar and are taken to a sub site which we created for this blog post. The sub site was created using the blank site template and we had gone ahead and added a Document Library and uploaded a few documents to it.

We can see that the sub site is sparse compared to the top level site which was created using the Team Site Template. We click on the subsiteDocuments link in the quick launch to go to the all items page.

We select all items and choose delete which moves them into the 'end user' recycle bin. We will accept the dialog box warning (not shown). We then click on the Recycle Bin link in the quick launch bar.

We will check the box next to subsite01.docx and choose Delete Selection to move the item to the second stage (Site Collection) recycle bin. We accept the "are you sure" warning dialog box by clicking OK (not shown).

We choose Site Actions > Site Settings to get to the site settings page. If you are not a Site Collection Administrator you will not be able to do the following steps.

We will need to click the link to take us to the settings page from the top level site of our site collection so we click the link that says 'Go to the top level site settings'

We click on the Recycle Bin link under Site Collection Administration.

This takes us to the Site Collection Recycle Bin. There are two options in the left navigation:

'End user Recycle Bin Items' – which show us all the items currently in the end user recycle bins in all the sites of our site collection.

'Deleted from end user Recycle Bin' – which shows us items deleted from the end user recycle bins that haven't met their 30 day limit.

We have very similar options from here as from the end user recycle bins, if we select an item and choose Restore Selection it will go back to its original location. If we choose Delete Item the item will be moved to the second stage recycle bin.

We also have an Empty Recycle Bin Option which will move all the documents into the Second Stage Recycle Bin.

We will click on the Deleted from end user Recycle Bin link to see what's in there.

When we clicked on the Deleted from end user Recycle Bin link the view changed to show us all the items which have been deleted from all end user recycle bins in our site collection.

We have the usual suspects as far as options go but it should be noted that if we select one or more items and choose Restore Selection they will go back to their original location, not back to the end user recycle bin. Also if we select one or more items and choose Delete Selection they are gone and would have be recovered from our backup solution which would most likely require the Farm Administrator to be involved.

Until items are deleted from this area they will count against the Site Collection Quota.

That's it! That pretty much covers how to use the Recycle Bin in SharePoint 2010.