Synology Recycle Bin on Shared Folders Recovers Deleted Files
One checkbox turns an accidental deletion into a two-minute restore. Enable the Synology recycle bin per shared folder, restrict it to admins, and empty it on a schedule.
✍️ Technical Anshu🗄️ Synology DSM 6 / 7⏱️ One checkbox per folder
🎥 Watch the full setup in the video - shared folders on Synology NAS, step by step
Every NAS admin has lived this phone call: "I deleted the wrong file - can you get it back?" Without the recycle bin, the honest answer is "only from backup". With it, the answer is "give me two minutes". The Synology recycle bin is one checkbox per shared folder, and skipping it is the single most regretted setting in DSM.
File Station - accounts folder (example)
Inside the accounts shared folder
#recycledeleted files land here first
Invoice-March.xlsxdeleted Tuesday 11:42SAVED
GST-working folderdeleted by mistakeSAVED
✔ Recycle Bin: enabled on this shared folder
✔ Access: restricted to administrators
Example only - with the recycle bin on, a deleted file is a two-minute restore instead of a data loss story.
1
What the Recycle Bin Actually Does
When it is enabled on a shared folder, anything a user deletes is not erased - DSM moves it into a #recycle folder inside that same shared folder, keeping the original folder path. It works for deletions from Windows Explorer, Mac Finder and File Station alike, because the move happens on the NAS itself. It is not a backup and it is not versioning; it is a dustbin, and dustbins get emptied.
2
Switch It On for Every Shared Folder
Control Panel → Shared Folder → select the folder → Edit
Tick Enable Recycle Bin
Also tick Restrict access to administrators only - recommended. Otherwise any user can browse everyone's deleted files, including the salary sheet someone threw away; and a user who deletes something by malice can empty it themselves
Repeat for every shared folder - the setting is per folder, DSM has no global switch
3
Bring a File Back
Open File Station as an administrator and enter the shared folder
Open #recycle and follow the same subfolder path the file lived in
Right-click the file → Restore (or copy it out) - it returns to its original place
Tell the user to check the file opens; very old items in the bin may have been partially cleaned by retention settings
4
Empty It on a Schedule, Not on a Panic
A recycle bin that is never emptied quietly eats the volume - every deleted video sits there at full size. In the same Edit screen you can Empty Recycle Bin manually, and DSM lets administrators schedule automatic emptying and set a retention period by days. A sane office policy: keep 30 days, empty automatically, and never treat the bin as an archive. For real protection against deletion you still need snapshots or backup - the bin only covers the window before it is emptied.
🔴 Honest limit: the recycle bin cannot save you from a deleted shared folder itself, from ransomware encrypting files in place, or from a user who empties it. It covers the everyday accident - which is, to be fair, 95 percent of deletion stories.
🎥 Watch the Complete Video Guide
The full shared folder setup - creating folders, users and permissions - shown live on a Synology NAS.
Into a folder called #recycle inside the same shared folder the file was deleted from, keeping its original subfolder path - but only if the recycle bin was enabled on that shared folder before the deletion happened. It cannot recover anything deleted while it was off.
Can users restore their own deleted files?
Only if you leave the bin open to them, which also lets them read everyone else's deleted files. The safer pattern is restricting the recycle bin to administrators, so recovery is a quick admin job and deleted confidential files stay confidential.
Does the recycle bin protect subfolders deleted from Windows?
Yes. Because DSM performs the move on the NAS side, a folder deleted from a mapped drive in Windows lands in #recycle with its contents, the same as a deletion inside File Station.
This guide is based on the Technical Anshu Synology shared folder video • Stuck on a step? Ask in the video comments - answers come there 🙏