How to Enable or Disable Confirm on Delete Files Pop-up in Windows 10

Windows 10 incorporates several security and safety features to help you prevent your data from being deleted due to accidental clicks and taps. That’s why the moment you press Delete button on keyboard after selecting a file / folder, you will see a pop-up window to confirm the deletion. Well, how do you turn off this confirmation dialog?

The pop-up always asks, “Are you sure you want to move this file / folder / shortcut to the trash?” with two options – Yes and No. Windows works this way to help users avoid deleting important files by mistake. Advanced users know better and are only frustrated by this behavior. If you’re one of that group, you’ll be happy to know that Windows offers a way to turn off these confirmation messages, thankfully.

On the flip side, some Windows users want this feature to return to Windows 10, which has been disabled by default.

Let’s start.

Enable or disable the delete confirmation dialog in the settings

Step 1: Locate the recycle bin on your desktop and right click it to select Properties. You will also find the recycle bin in File Explorer (Windows key + shortcut E).

2nd step: You can easily enable or disable it by checking / unchecking the option “Show deletion confirmation dialog”. Click Apply and OK to save the changes.

Did you notice that there is another option to ignore the recycle bin completely when deleting a file? Check this option to delete the file immediately, use it only if you have to.

Enable or disable the delete confirmation dialog box using the registry editor

Registry Editor is available on all versions of Windows, including Home Edition. Editing the registry editor is tricky, so you should take a backup before continuing with this solution.

Step 1: Open the Start menu and find Registry Editor. Click Run as administrator to open with the appropriate rights.

2nd step: Navigate to the folder structure below.

HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPoliciesExplorer

Note: If a folder is missing, you can right-click the main folder to create a new subfolder. For example, if the Explorer folder is missing, right click on Policies and select New> Key and name it that way. Folders are called keys and the files they contain are called values ​​in Registry Editor. We call them Folders and Files to make it easier for our readers to understand and follow the steps.

Step 3: Open the ‘ConfirmFileDelete’ file in the right pane of the window. If it is missing or if you have just created the necessary folders, right click anywhere on the right side to select New> DWORD Value (32 bit), name it accordingly.

Step 4: Double click on the ConfirmFileDelete file to open it and set the value to 1. Save the changes. Check if you still get the delete confirmation dialog box when you press the delete button on the keyboard.

3. Enable or disable the delete confirmation dialog box in the Group Policy Editor

Unlike Registry Editor, Group Policy Editor or GPE is only available on Windows Pro and Enterprise editions. You can follow this method if the one shared above does not work or does not work in an enterprise with an enterprise server installation. The latter will allow you, as a system administrator, to enforce these settings on all or a group of computers connected to the server. If in doubt, speak to your supervisor.

Step 1: Find and open the Group Policy Editor from the Start menu and open it. You will be asked for administrator rights. Please allow it.

2nd step: Navigate to the folder structure below.

User ConfigurationAdministrative TemplatesWindows ComponentsFile Explorer

Find the entry “Show confirmation dialog when deleting files” in the right pane of the window and double-click it to open it.

Step 3: Select the Enabled radio option in the pop-up window that follows to enable the delete confirmation dialog box and Disabled to disable it. Remember to click Apply to save the changes before closing the pop-up window.

Removal from Windows

Now that you know why Windows is giving you the confirmation pop-up, you can handle it however you want. If you want to ignore the confirmation message, hold down the Shift key and then delete the files directly from your computer. Fortunately, even if you accidentally delete something, it can still be recovered easily from the recycle bin or those deleted directly. There are file recovery apps like Recuva available on the web that make the process easier. However, these apps work best on hard drives because SSDs work differently. So always keep this in mind when deleting files directly or from recycle bin.