Delete or Clear Jumplist Recent Items in Windows 7

Posted on December 17, 2009 at 5:06 am

Back 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 you recently opened!

If you’re a privacy freak who doesn’t want someone random to see what kind of documents  you were opening, this came in pretty handy! However, with Windows 7, there is a new feature called a Jumplist. You can read my previous post on how to create your own jumplists.

With Jumplists, that functionality basically moved from the Start Menu to the Taskbar! For example, if you open several Word documents and then right-click on the Word icon in the taskbar, you’ll get the following:

clear windows 7 jumplists

Hmm, maybe you didn’t want anyone to see that marriage proposal Word doc! Ok, bad example, but you see my point. The jumplist has a list of recent documents opened in Word. Great if you want quick access to a Word doc without having to browse in Windows Explorer, but not great if you want to hide this information.

Now this is just Word! Each program can have it’s own list of recent documents or files or whatever else that show up. The only obvious way to delete the entries from the jumplist right now is to right-click on an item and choose Remove from this list.

remove jumplist items

This is pretty painful for many different apps! Luckily, there is an easier way to remove multiple items from many jumplists at once. All recent items in any jumplists are stored by Windows in a hidden location. You can get to them here:

%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\AutomaticDestinations

Copy and paste that into Windows Explorer. Now you will see a list of files with very long and convoluted names. This is because they are all encoded. Each one represents a list of recent items for a particular jumplist.

clear jumplists windows 7

It’s impossible to tell which entries go with which jumplists unless you open the file in a text editor and browse through. However, since all of the files are just recent items in a jumplist, you can delete all the files and it will clear all recent items on all jumplists.

You can also run a simple command from the command prompt to do the same thing:

del %appdata%\microsoft\windows\recent\automaticdestinations\*

You can then add this to a Windows batch file and run it by just double-clicking on the shortcut. You can read my previous post on how to create Windows batch files. [via gHacks]

» Filed Under Windows 7

Related Posts

Comments

7 Responses to “Delete or Clear Jumplist Recent Items in Windows 7”

  1. Wilma said on : December 17th, 2009 at 9:53 am

    Thanks for this info. Had a quick question for you though. So basically there is no such thing as a “Recent Documents” list anyone in Windows 7?

    What I want to know is if jumplists are the only way to see recent items for a program without actually going into the program? Thanks


  2. Jeff Scott said on : January 1st, 2010 at 2:05 pm

    Thanks so much for a very well-written and helpful article. It was exactly what I was looking for.

    Cheers, and happy new year!

    Jeff
    @jeffscott


  3. Andy said on : January 17th, 2010 at 6:54 am

    Thanks for this one! It helped me a lot with Windows 7!


  4. figured I'd share said on : January 22nd, 2010 at 4:52 pm

    I just conquered this issue in a different manner. I wanted windows to quit displaying a recent list for a specific application.

    I opened a file – to add it to the recent list that I wanted to eliminate.

    Opened:
    %appdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\AutomaticDestinations

    Sorted the files by date modified – to find the recent list I was after. Changed the permissions – so my user account was DENY’d Read access – BAM no more recent list for that application.

    I win \o/


  5. jeffscott said on : January 25th, 2010 at 3:30 pm

    Very clever idea. i’m going to try that too on my Windows 7 machine. cheers!


  6. Alessa said on : January 28th, 2010 at 5:40 am

    Hi, I figured out an easier way to keep the jumplists clear. Right-click on the Taskbar and go to Properties. Then in the dialog, click on the Start Menu tab. Then under Privacy, you’ll see two check boxes: store and display recently opened items and recently opened programs. Just uncheck those boxes!


  7. stefan said on : May 17th, 2010 at 3:40 pm

    there is a simpler way to do this without having to go into that “hidden” folder everytime you wish to delete the recent files or jump lists…

    simply download a tool called “ClearProg 1.6.1 Beta 2″ from this website, clearprog.de (choose your language)
    and install the tool.

    once installed run it and select “add folder” simply find your way to the recent folder

    %APPDATA%\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Recent Items

    and run the tool and everything should be clear.

    you can also choose delete all which gets rid of your browsing history and much more. Its a great tool and i have been using it for years :) .

    i hope this helps

    im running windows 7 home premium btw

    stefan 17/5/10


Please post your comments/suggestions!