Windows 10: Recycle bin shows empty on File Explorer, but WindirStat shows it taking up space

My C drive was almost full and I tried to clean it up by moving folders to recycle bin and deleting them. While some of the space has been released, My C drive still consumes a lot of space.If I try the "rd /s /q C:\$Recycle.bin" from an elevated command prompt, I get a sequence of messages like----C:\$Recycle.bin\S-1-5-~4\$R21BCUZ\ONEDRI~1\GOOGLE~1\GOOGLE~2\2018\10\IMG_20181004_190218.jpg - Access is denied.C:\$Recycle.bin\S-1-5-~4\$R21BCUZ\ONEDRI~1\GOOGLE~1\GOOGLE~2\2018\10\IMG_20181008_173827.jpg - Access is denied.C:\$Recycle.bin\S-1-5-~4\$R21BCUZ\ONEDRI~1\GOOGLE~1\GOOGLE~2\2018\10\IMG_201

:)

 

Recycle bin shows empty on File Explorer, but WindirStat shows it taking up space

My C drive was almost full and I tried to clean it up by moving folders to recycle bin and deleting them. While some of the space has been released, My C drive still consumes a lot of space.

If I try the "rd /s /q C:\$Recycle.bin" from an elevated command prompt, I get a sequence of messages like

----
C:\$Recycle.bin\S-1-5-~4\$R21BCUZ\ONEDRI~1\GOOGLE~1\GOOGLE~2\2018\10\IMG_20181004_190218.jpg - Access is denied.
C:\$Recycle.bin\S-1-5-~4\$R21BCUZ\ONEDRI~1\GOOGLE~1\GOOGLE~2\2018\10\IMG_20181008_173827.jpg - Access is denied.
C:\$Recycle.bin\S-1-5-~4\$R21BCUZ\ONEDRI~1\GOOGLE~1\GOOGLE~2\2018\10\IMG_20181008_173828.jpg - Access is denied.
C:\$Recycle.bin\S-1-5-~4\$R21BCUZ\ONEDRI~1\GOOGLE~1\GOOGLE~2\2018\10\IMG_20181008_173831.jpg - Access is denied.
C:\$Recycle.bin\S-1-5-~4\$R21BCUZ\ONEDRI~1\GOOGLE~1\GOOGLE~2\2018\10\IMG_20181008_173838.jpg - Access is denied.
----

a "Dir" command on Recycle Bin produces the following

====

C:\$Recycle.Bin>dir
Volume in drive C has no label.
Volume Serial Number is 70FE-6053

Directory of C:\$Recycle.Bin

File Not Found

====

File explorer also shows Recycle bin to be empty

WinDirStat gives me the following:





Any ideas on recovering the storage space. I do not need the files. They have been backed up on Google Drive. I also do not have access to the OneDrive account where they were originally stored and synced.

Just noticed that the last error message talks about a file being locked

"C:\$Recycle.bin\S-1-5-~4\$R21BCUZ\ONEDRI~1\Pictures\VIDEOP~1\Nrtya-Veerangana - YouTube.mp4 - Access is denied.
The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process.
"

 

File in $RECYCLE.BIN not showing in the Recycle bin

I have a disk that is full, I deleted file and emptied the recycle bin and it is still full. Using windirstat, I can see there is 1.6G in $RECYCLE.BIN :





But when I go to the Recycle bin, it shows as Empty :





How could I retrieve the space associated with the file I deleted?

 

Temporary files shows recycle bin has 4GB in it, but actual recycle bin is empty

If you refer to my original post, I did not say that my recycle bin is empty. I stated that my recycle bin has over 4GB in it:

"When I go to the storage on my device and look under temporary files, it shows my recycle bin having 4.84GB in it. However, when I open the recycle bin there are no items in it."

My storage shows that there is over 4GB in my recycle bin, but there are no files in the recycle bin when I open it. I have already tried everything you have suggested and they do not fix the problem.