How to clear or delete my recent documents in Windows

Posted on January 10, 2008 at 8:10 am

Looking for a way to delete the recent documents list in Windows? Don’t you hate it sometimes how many things Windows tracks, like all of the most recent documents you have opened in ANY program. If you want to disable recent documents and remove/clear your most recent documents, it’s actually a pretty simple process!

I’m going to explain the method for clearing the my recent documents list in Windows XP, but the same holds true for Windows Vista. So here’s a step by step guide to deleting your my recent documents list:

First, right-click on the Start Button and choose Properties:

You’ll now be in the Start Menu and Taskbar properties dialog box. You should already be on the Start Menu tab. Go ahead and click on the Customize button.

You should now be viewing the Customize Start Menu dialog box. Go ahead and click on the Advanced tab.

At the bottom, you’ll see a section called Recent Documents. Click Clear List to clear the most recent list of documents. If you do not want Windows to record your recent documents at all, uncheck the List my most recently opened documents box. That’s it!

Now the option on the Start Menu for most recent documents will be removed and nothing will be recorded! Have any questions, post a comment! Enjoy!

[tags]my recent documents, clear recent documents, clear my recent documents, delete recent documents, disable recent documents, remove recent documents, how to clear recent documents, delete my recent documents[/tags]

» Filed Under Computer Tips

Comments

13 Responses to “How to clear or delete my recent documents in Windows”

Vaibhav said on : January 10th, 2008 at 9:45 am

I think the better solution is to run utility like CCleaner once a week or so. This will take care of your recent documents, and the recent files captured by other programs like Word, Excel etc.

akishore said on : January 10th, 2008 at 11:15 am

Vaibhav, I agree! If you have CCleaner, it clears out your recent documents and browser history also. Thanks.

Dinesh said on : January 10th, 2008 at 8:38 pm

Its easy way to clear documents. Excellent

chinapapa said on : March 24th, 2008 at 5:46 pm

this is the most best site I have visited. good job.

st3po2000 said on : May 5th, 2008 at 11:15 pm

You must modify the Windows XP Registry to stop XP from keeping track of your recent documents. The start menu options above dont stop the shortcuts from being stored under your profile folder.

Registry Key is
HCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

Add DWORD value named NoRecentDocsHistory with Data Value of 1 to above, save, and reboot.

MS Tweak UI has a Recent Documents function, as well. Available from Microsoft.

FK Woo said on : November 21st, 2008 at 12:56 pm

Hi,
Can someone tell me how to automatically clear the “my recent documents” after each Windows session.
I find manually clearing it at end of each session too tedious and i am a forgetful guy.:(
I am not a technie , so a simple step by step guide or screen shots would be greatly appreciated.

THANK YOU!!

21 Nov

Dave Vandermus said on : December 7th, 2008 at 4:41 am

The problem with the built-in option where you uncheck the check box is that this does not work with the classic start menu. I’ve even tried changing the start menu format and then unchecking the option, but as soon as I go back to the classic start menu, it starts tracking recent documents again.

Mister Fidwick said on : May 16th, 2009 at 8:28 pm

Can anyone help me – there is another “my recent documents”, if you open microsoft word, click open and on the side panel there is “my documents, my computer, my recent documents”- it still shows recent documents even after I have followed the above steps. How can I clear it, I dont want my documents beng accessed!

Malu said on : May 20th, 2009 at 12:05 pm

I followe instructions on how to clear “my recent documents’ but the documents are still there. I need to get rid of them. Please help me!

Raja said on : May 29th, 2009 at 3:42 am

Thanks for providing useful suggestions .

sunil said on : September 11th, 2009 at 4:47 am

The suggestion was really helpful! I needed to clear my recent documents! Thanks a lot.

Helen said on : November 21st, 2009 at 1:29 pm

Thank you so much for making this easy to understand. Worked first go! Recent documents are now all gone!

Delete or Clear Jumplist Recent Items in Windows 7 Says:

[...] in the days, I wrote an article on how to clear the recent documents list in Windows XP. If you ever went to My Recent Documents in the Start Menu, you used to get a list of all the files [...]
December 17th, 2009 at 5:07 am