AD Recycle Bin

The Active Directory Recycle Bin is a feature which will allow an administrator to restore a deleted object. If a Computer account was "accidentally" deleted, it can be restored to retrieve the information. If an administrator "accidentally" deleted an OU containing half of the user accounts while cleaning up Active Directory, they can also be restored. By default, the AD Recycle Bin is not enabled.

Enabling the Active Directory Recycle Bin

From the Server Manager window, select the Local Server.

From there, click on Tools and then Active Directory Administrative Center, this will bring you the the Active Directory Administrative Center.

From the Active Directory Administration Center, on the left, select the domain then move to the rightmost pane then scroll down to find Enable Recycle Bin, click on the link.

Clicking OK will confirm your choice to Enable the AD Recycle Bin.

The next pop-up will contain the confirmation and will notify you to refresh the AD Administrative Center.

It may take some time for the replication process to complete.

Now that the Recycle Bin is enabled, the Enable Recycle Bin will appear as grayed out on the right pane and the Deleted Objects folder appears in the center pane.