Where were these "notes" before you supposedly "deleted" them? Were these text files on your hard drive? If yes, I'd think they should be in the Recycle Bin. If no...were these files on a USB stick? Nothing that I delete from a USB stick ever goes into the bin,,,it's gone for good.

Presuming you saved the note as part of creating it, then when deleted it should end up in the recycle bin. If you create a note but don't save it when you close Notepad, then it would disappear.

If you save notepad.txt to remote network storage disks, they wont delete to the recycle bin. Recycle bin also has a default maximum file size it will accept - so if you delete extra large size files, they wont appear in your trash.

None of my notes, saved or not go to the recycle bin when deleted.

These are notes that I create when I am formatting to post in certain forums.

Some (notes) are simply copied and pasted urls to sites that I want to visit later or to random info like phone numbers or email addys that I only need temporarily.

No, they are not on a usb stick or remotely stored, they are on my desktop HD.

I don't need to recover any notes. I only asked the question because I was curious.

Everything else goes to the bin but 'none' of my discarded notes (saved or not) ever show up there?

Thanks Everyone

Try this
Open the recycle bin, with it open delete a "discarded note" from the desktop. Do you see it enter the recycle bin ?

Just tried it zep. Nope, the note didn't go to the bin.

Surely I am not the first to ever want to retrieve a discarded note from their notepad? No one has ever questioned where discarded notes go before?

When you delete these notes, how are you doing it? Are you trying to drag-drop them into the Recycle Bin? If no, how are you deleting them? When you delete files, do you ever see the Confirmation Dialog Box? (example...are you sure you want to move this file to the Recycle Bin?) If no, maybe a finicky mouse is releasing your files into another folder on your desktop. Are you using this computer as ADMIN? If yes, create a separate USER account to find out if deleted notes do or do not show up in the bin.

Does this computer ever get scanned for malware? It's possible that something is actively interfering with the file deletion process. This is just the sort of thing that hackers do to make life miserable for the rest of us.

If you're creating text files on your desktop using Notepad (the Wordpad little brother) I would expect the discarded "notes" to go to the bin.

However, if you're something else such as ColorNote Notepad Notes or Sticky Notes, discarded notes don't seem to use the bin. They just go away.

BTW, Sticky Notes seem to be stored here: %appdata%\Microsoft\Sticky Notes\

That's interesting. As others have suggested you're using Windows Notepad, the basic text editor that comes with Windows? I just created a document in Notepad, saved it, then deleted it (by hitting the delete key and confirming). It's in my Recycle Bin. Does this happen with any other kind of file (pictures, Word document, etc.) that you delete?? Why do I want to think that Windows has a setting that allows the user to bypass the recycle bin and just permanently delete files???

You can bypass the Recycle Bin by checking "Don't move files to the Recycle Bin. Remove files immediately when deleted." under the bin's properties.

.

But justme4now says:

"Everything else goes to the bin but 'none' of my discarded notes (saved or not) ever show up there?"

I am deleting the notes like I delete everything else.

I am not 'dragging' them to the recycle bin.

I don't have the "Remove Files Immediately" box checked and everything else including pictures and software go to the bin, just not the notepad notes!

When I have an open note (a saved note or just a temp note) and I want to delete it, I click the X at the top.

The box pops up and asks if I want to save or discard the note.

I hit discard and it's gone forever!

No bin.

I just tried using Word .. same thing!

Maybe it's something to do with windows 10?

Oh, you aren't saving them? Are you just using notepad to temporarily create a note and then closing it without saving? If you create a note and save it with a file name like test.txt and then delete it, can you see it in the recycle bin?

"When I have an open note (a saved note or just a temp note) and I want to delete it, I click the X at the top."

When I read these words, the problem became clear to me. Ordinarily, I would ask ...How did you delete the files that did show up in the bin?...because I know that they did not get there by you clicking the X at the top...but we can skip that part because now I know that it won't do any good. Have a nice day!

zep, I reset the bin and it works again! Thank You!

BTW: See my new post for a 'new' head scratcher. lol