Remove or hide Recent Files From Quick Access (Windows 11, 10)

Open File Explorer, click the three dots in the toolbar, choose Options. On the General tab, under Privacy, press Clear.

The recent files list empties immediately. Untick Show recently used files in the same box and it stops coming back.

That's Windows 11 — where the section is now called Home, not Quick Access, which is why half the guides you've read don't match your screen. Windows 10 uses the same settings behind a View → Options menu instead. Both are below, separately, in full.

Most people reading this are not tidying up. They're on a computer somebody else uses too. So this guide covers what that list actually reveals, and the four other places Windows keeps a copy that clearing Quick Access does not touch.

What That List Is, and Who Can Read It

Jake runs a small mobile phone shop. One PC behind the counter, one Windows account, no password on it — because customers are waiting and nobody types a password forty times a day. Two people use it: Jake, and the part-timer who covers Saturdays.

In March, Jake spent an evening drafting a letter to his landlord, weighing up a move to a bigger unit two streets over. He saved it as landlord-notice-vacate-shop-march.docx. He never printed it and never sent it.

On Saturday, the part-timer opened File Explorer to find a scanned warranty card. The file name was sitting in Home → Recent, third from the top. He didn't open it. He just read the name, drew the obvious conclusion, and mentioned to two regulars that the shop was closing.

Jake spent a fortnight telling people he wasn't. One customer had already taken a screen repair two doors down — about ₹2,000 of work, which isn't the point. The point is that he had to have the conversation at all, and the only thing that leaked was eleven words in a file name.

"Ethan," he said, "how do I make Windows stop announcing what I've been doing?"

Why file names leak more than files do

Windows file permissions protect contents, and they're good at it. A document you've locked down cannot be opened by someone without rights to it.

The recent files list shows names. Names aren't contents, so the same protection doesn't cover them — and the name is frequently the sensitive part:

• redundancy-letter-final.docx
• quote-tatasteel-bulk-order-revised.xlsx
• divorce-petition-draft-3.pdf
• staff-salary-review-2026.xlsx
• biopsy-results-scan.pdf

Nobody needs to open any of those. The name carries the news. On a shared machine that list is a running commentary on your week, printed in the sidebar of the most-used app on the computer — along with where each file lives, which exposes folder structures, client names, project codes, mapped network drives and USB sticks that aren't even plugged in any more.

Windows 11 renamed it, and that's why guides don't match

Until Windows 11 version 22H2, the top item in the File Explorer sidebar was Quick access. It now says Home, with a small house icon. Home is a container, and inside it are three groups:

So on Windows 11, "remove recent files from Quick Access" really means "empty the Recent group inside Home". Same job, new furniture. Microsoft kept Quick access alive for the pinned-folders row, which is exactly the sort of half-rename that makes documentation age badly. If your Windows 11 sidebar still says Quick access, you're on an early build (21H2) and the Windows 10 steps below will match your screen better.

Windows 11: Remove One, Clear All, or Stop Recording

Three separate jobs. Nearly every guide online treats them as one, which is why people follow the steps, watch the list refill an hour later, and assume something is broken.

Job 1 — remove a single file from the list

One entry gone. Not the whole list, and not the file.

1. Open File Explorer (Windows + E).
2. Click Home at the top of the left sidebar.
3. Scroll to the Recent section.
4. Right-click the file you want gone.
5. Choose Remove from Recent.

It disappears instantly. The file itself is untouched — it stays in its folder, keeps its name, keeps its contents. You have removed a pointer, not a document.

Removing a folder tile from the Quick access row above is a different command: right-click it for Unpin from Quick access if you pinned it, or Remove from Quick access if Windows added it automatically.

Job 2 — clear the entire recent list at once

One button, and it is well hidden.

1. Open File Explorer.
2. Click the … (three dots, labelled See more) on the right of the toolbar.
3. Choose Options. A window titled Folder Options opens.
4. Stay on the General tab.
5. At the bottom, under Privacy, click Clear.
6. Click OK.

The list is empty before you've closed the window. No restart, no sign-out.

That Clear button does more than the label suggests: in one press it also wipes the File Explorer address bar history and the jump lists on your taskbar icons. Genuinely useful, entirely undocumented on screen.

Faster route if the toolbar is being awkward: press Windows + R, type control folders, press Enter. (The Run box is the small "type a command" window Windows has always had — a shortcut to launch things without hunting through menus.)

Job 3 — stop Windows recording it in the first place

This is the one people miss, and then wonder why the list came back. Clearing is an action. Tracking is a setting. Clear the list with tracking still on and Windows starts a fresh one the moment you open your next document. There are two switches, in two different places, and you need both.

Switch one — hide the lists in File Explorer:

1. Same box as before: … → Options → General → Privacy.
2. Untick Show recently used files.
3. Untick Show frequently used folders.
4. Untick Show files from Office.com — Windows 11 only, and it's the one that surprises people, because it pulls in documents from your Microsoft account that you never opened on this PC at all.
5. Click Clear once more to empty what's already there, then OK.

Switch two — stop the history being written:

1. Press Windows + I for Settings.
2. Personalisation → Start.
3. Turn off Show recently opened items in Start, Jump Lists and File Explorer.

That toggle's wording changed between releases. On 22H2 it reads "Show recently opened items in Start, Jump Lists, and File Explorer"; on 24H2 you may see "Show recommended files in Start, recent files in File Explorer, and items in Jump Lists". Same switch, same registry value underneath, different marketing.

What you lose by turning tracking off

Nobody mentions the trade, so:

• Jump lists go empty. Right-clicking Word on the taskbar no longer offers your last ten documents. Some people rely on that heavily.
• Start's Recommended area empties on Windows 11 and shows a placeholder, which several people find uglier than the list itself.
• Save and Open dialogs stop remembering where you were last.
• Pinned items survive. Anything you deliberately pinned stays. Only the automatic entries stop.

Ethan's view, plainly: on a personal laptop nobody else touches, leave tracking on and clear it occasionally — it's a useful feature and the privacy gain on a single-user machine is close to zero. On a shared machine, turn it off and stop thinking about it. The middle ground, leaving it on and remembering to clear it, is the one that fails, because you'll forget on exactly the day it matters.

Bonus: stop Explorer opening on Home altogether

… → Options → General → Open File Explorer to → This PC. It clears nothing, but the list stops being the first thing on screen every time anyone opens a window — on a counter PC that's a real improvement by itself. See opening File Explorer to This PC instead of Quick Access. Windows 11 offers a third choice, your OneDrive folder, worth avoiding on a shared machine for the same reason.

Windows 10: The Same Three Jobs, a Different Route

Nothing here is conceptually different. Same settings, same Folder Options box, same registry values. Windows 10 just gets you there through a ribbon instead of a three-dot button, and still calls the section Quick access.

Remove a single file — Windows 10

1. Open File Explorer and click Quick access in the sidebar.
2. Under Recent files, right-click the entry.
3. Choose Remove from Quick access.

Windows 10 uses the full right-click menu, so there's no Show more options step. Different wording from Windows 11's Remove from Recent, identical effect.

Clear the whole list — Windows 10

1. Open File Explorer.
2. Click the View tab on the ribbon.
3. Click Options on the far right. (If it has a small arrow, click the top half of the button, not the arrow.)
4. General tab → Privacy → Clear.
5. OK.

The control folders Run shortcut works here too and skips the ribbon entirely.

Stop it recording — Windows 10

Same two switches, slightly different labels.

1. In that same Privacy section, untick Show recently used files in Quick access and Show frequently used folders in Quick access. There is no Office.com tickbox on Windows 10.
2. Then Settings (Windows + I) → Personalisation → Start → turn off Show recently opened items in Jump Lists on Start or the taskbar and in File Explorer Quick access.

Yes, that is genuinely the full name of the toggle — and the most honest label Microsoft has ever used for this feature, because it names all three places it applies to. The shorter Windows 11 wording no longer does.

Where This Data Actually Lives (and How to Verify It's Gone)

Menus tell you what Microsoft wants you to see. The folders tell you what's really there — the difference between "I clicked the button" and "I checked".

Paste each of these into the File Explorer address bar and press Enter. Identical on Windows 11 and Windows 10.

%AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent
%AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\AutomaticDestinations
%AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\CustomDestinations

%AppData% is a shortcut Windows expands for you: it means C:\Users\YourName\AppData\Roaming. AppData is hidden by default, which is why you can't browse to it by clicking — typing the path works regardless. To see it permanently, our guide to showing hidden files and file extensions takes twenty seconds.

What's in each folder

Those hexadecimal names aren't random. Each is a hash identifying one application, and they're stable across every Windows PC in the world — precisely why forensic tools can read them. Two you may care about:

• f01b4d95cf55d32a.automaticDestinations-ms — your pinned Quick Access folders
• 5f7b5f1e01b83767.automaticDestinations-ms — the frequent Quick Access folders Windows added by itself

Clearing them by hand, and the one-line version

Manually: open Recent, press Ctrl + A, then Shift + Delete to skip the Recycle Bin. Repeat for the subfolders if the pins are expendable.

For the impatient, one command does all three. Press Windows + R, type cmd, press Enter, then paste:

del /f /q "%AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\*.lnk"
del /f /q "%AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\AutomaticDestinations\*"
del /f /q "%AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\CustomDestinations\*"

/f forces read-only files, /q skips the confirmation prompt. The first line targets *.lnk only, deliberately, so it doesn't touch the two subfolders.

You do not need an administrator prompt — this is your own profile, so no UAC prompt should appear. If one does, the path you pasted is wrong.

"Access denied" or "file in use"

Windows keeps some of these open while Explorer is running, so a few will refuse to delete. Restart Explorer: Task Manager (Ctrl + Shift + Esc) → find Windows Explorer → right-click → Restart. The taskbar vanishes for a second and comes back; nothing else is affected. Then run the deletion again. Fuller walkthrough in restarting explorer.exe, including what to do if the taskbar doesn't return.

The verification step

Reopen %AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent after clearing. Empty, or only a handful of shortcuts created since? The job worked. Repopulated within minutes with files you didn't open? Tracking is still on and you've only done Job 2 — go back and do Job 3. Fifteen seconds, and it's the difference between believing it worked and knowing.

Making It Permanent: Group Policy (Pro) and Registry (Home)

The tickboxes are a preference. Anyone with access to the account can tick them back on in fifteen seconds. If you want the behaviour enforced — a shop counter, a reception desk, a classroom, a machine you hand to staff — you need a policy.

Which edition am I on?

Press Windows + Pause, or go to Settings → System → About. Look for Edition.

• Pro, Enterprise or Education → use Group Policy. Cleaner, reversible, one screen.
• Home → use the Registry. Same result, more typing.

The Group Policy method (Pro and above)

Group Policy Editor is a control panel for rules that Windows enforces regardless of what the normal Settings app says. You open it by name:

1. Press Windows + R.
2. Type gpedit.msc and press Enter.

The .msc ending stands for Microsoft Saved Console — a small file that tells Windows which management panel to load. It isn't a program in its own right, which is why you won't find it by searching the Start menu on some systems.

Then navigate down the left-hand tree:

User Configuration
  → Administrative Templates
    → Start Menu and Taskbar

Three settings in that list matter here:

Double-click a policy, select Enabled, click OK. To apply immediately without signing out, open a command prompt and run gpupdate /force.

Enable the first or the second, not both — the first makes the second irrelevant. Ethan's preference is the second one: you keep the convenience all day, and the machine forgets everything when the shift ends. For Jake's counter PC, that is precisely the right shape.

The Registry method (Home editions)

Windows Home doesn't ship gpedit.msc. Typing it gives you "Windows cannot find gpedit.msc". That's not a fault — it was never installed. The underlying registry values still work, because Group Policy is only a friendly front end for exactly these values.

Back up first. In Registry Editor, click File → Export, choose All under Export range, and save the file somewhere you'll find it. Restoring is a double-click on that file.

1. Press Windows + R, type regedit, press Enter, and accept the UAC prompt. (New to this? Opening Registry Editor covers it from zero.)
2. Paste this into the address bar at the top and press Enter:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

If Explorer isn't there, right-click Policies → New → Key, and name it Explorer exactly.

Then create whichever of these you want. Right-click in the empty right-hand pane → New → DWORD (32-bit) Value:

Sign out and back in. To reverse either, delete the value or set it to 0.

There's a third value worth knowing, in a different place. This is the one the Settings toggle actually writes:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced
   Start_TrackDocs  (DWORD)  =  0

Setting Start_TrackDocs to 0 is identical to flipping Show recently opened items off in Settings. It is a preference, not a policy, so a user can change it back. Use the Policies\Explorer values above if you want it enforced.

If you get "Cannot create value: Error writing to the registry", that's a permissions problem on the key rather than anything you did wrong — our guide to fixing registry write errors walks through taking ownership of a key.

Getting Group Policy Editor onto a Home edition

It is possible to install the policy editor components on Home. Whether you should is a different question — it's an unsupported configuration, and for two registry values it is a lot of effort for no additional result. If you want it for other reasons, we've documented getting Group Policy Editor on Home editions separately. For this specific task, the two DWORDs above are faster and equally permanent.

The Four Trails Clearing Quick Access Leaves Behind

Here is the part almost nobody covers, and the reason our own 2015 advice needed correcting.

You have cleared Quick Access. Your file names are still visible in at least four other places on the same computer, to the same person, without any special tools.

Trail 1 — jump lists on taskbar icons

Right-click Word on the taskbar. Or Excel, or Notepad, or Adobe Reader, or File Explorer itself. A list appears of the last documents opened in that specific app.

This is where Jake's landlord letter would still have been visible, because right-clicking the Word icon is the fastest way most people reopen a document.

• Remove one: right-click the taskbar icon, hover the entry, right-click it, choose Remove from this list.
• Clear the lot: the Clear button in Folder Options does it, since jump lists and Quick Access share the same AutomaticDestinations folder.
• Stop it: only the Settings → Personalisation → Start toggle stops jump lists refilling. The File Explorer tickboxes have no effect on them at all.

Jump lists also appear on Start menu tiles and on pinned apps. If you've pinned apps to the taskbar or Start menu, each of them carries its own list.

Trail 2 — the Windows 11 Start menu Recommended section

Open Start on Windows 11 and the bottom half is headed Recommended. It shows recently opened files with their names, in large type, on the most visible screen in the operating system. Press the Windows key by accident in front of a customer and it's right there.

• Remove one: right-click the entry → Remove from list.
• Empty it and keep it empty: Settings → Personalisation → Start → turn off Show recently opened items in Start, Jump Lists and File Explorer, plus Show recently added apps and Show most used apps.
• Windows 11 Pro: gpedit.msc → User Configuration → Administrative Templates → Start Menu and Taskbar → Remove Recommended section from Start Menu.

On Windows 10 the equivalent is the Most used apps list and Recently added, both under the same Settings page. It shows applications rather than documents, so it leaks less — though "most used app" can still be telling. You can remove or hide items from the Start menu there too.

Trail 3 — Office keeps its own list, and syncs it

Word, Excel and PowerPoint do not use the Windows recent list. They keep their own, and Windows cannot clear it.

1. Open Word or Excel.
2. File → Open → Recent.
3. Right-click any entry → Clear unpinned items.

To stop it recording: File → Options → Advanced → scroll to Display → set Show this number of Recent Documents to 0.

The bit that catches people: if you're signed in to Office with a Microsoft or work account, that recent list syncs to the account. Clear it on the shop PC and it can reappear on your laptop, or vice versa. It is not stored only on the machine in front of you. On Windows 11, the Show files from Office.com tickbox is what pulls those cloud entries back into File Explorer — which is why we told you to untick it.

Adobe Reader, VLC, Notepad++, Photoshop and most serious applications keep their own lists too, usually under a Recent Files menu with a Clear option nearby. Windows cannot reach any of them.

Trail 4 — the File Explorer address bar and search box

Click the small arrow at the right of the File Explorer address bar. A dropdown appears listing every location you've typed into it. Folder names, network shares, server paths.

Click into the search box and it offers your previous search terms — which on a shared PC can be more revealing than the file list, because people search for things they're worried about.

The Clear button in Folder Options clears both. If entries survive it, they can be deleted directly:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\TypedPaths
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\WordWheelQuery

TypedPaths holds the address bar entries as values named url1, url2 and so on — delete the values, keep the key. WordWheelQuery holds your search terms and can be deleted entirely; Windows recreates it.

And a few smaller ones, for completeness

• Thumbnail cache. Preview images of photos and documents you've viewed sit in %LocalAppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer as thumbcache_*.db files. Disk Cleanup has a Thumbnails tickbox that clears them.
• The search index. Windows Search indexes file names across your drive. Someone typing a keyword into the Start menu can surface a document that was never in any recent list.
• File History. If backup is running, versions of your documents are on the backup drive with their names intact — see clearing File History in Windows 11 and 10.
• OneDrive. If your Documents folder syncs, the OneDrive web interface has its own recent-files view, reachable from any browser by anyone signed in on that PC. Hiding the OneDrive icon in File Explorer changes the display, not the sync.
• Recall, on Copilot+ PCs, takes periodic snapshots of the screen. It's off by default and opt-in, but on a shared machine it is worth confirming that it is off rather than assuming.
• Copilot and browser history — if anyone has been asking an assistant about a document, that conversation is its own record; deleting Copilot history is a separate job.

What This Does Not Do — an Honest Limit

Everything above is about tidiness and casual privacy. Stopping a colleague, a family member or a customer leaning over the counter from reading your file names at a glance. For that purpose it works completely.

It is not forensic erasure, and it would be dishonest to let you believe otherwise.

What survives, all of it recoverable without exotic equipment:

• The files themselves. Untouched, in their folders. You removed pointers.
• Prefetch data in C:\Windows\Prefetch, recording which programs ran and when.
• The NTFS journal and master file table, which record file creation, modification and deletion at the file-system level, entirely independently of any list Windows shows you.
• Event logs and, on managed machines, audit records.
• Volume Shadow Copies and System Restore points, which can contain earlier copies of the very files and lists you just cleared.
• Deleted shortcut files themselves — a .lnk removed from Recent leaves recoverable traces on the drive until that space is overwritten.

Anyone with administrator access to the machine and a free forensics tool can reconstruct a great deal of this in minutes. That is not a flaw in the steps above; it is what an operating system does.

So what is the real answer for a shared computer?

Two things, and they're both boring:

Separate Windows accounts. Each account has its own profile, its own AppData, its own recent list, its own everything. This is the actual designed solution and it takes three minutes: creating a user account in Windows. Give the shared duties a standard account and keep your own for your own work. Jake now has exactly this, and the accounts are named after the two of them so nobody has to think about it.

Device encryption. Separate accounts stop someone reading your files while Windows is running. They do nothing if somebody takes the drive out and plugs it into another machine, which is a five-minute job. Encryption is what closes that gap, and it's available on Home editions too — device encryption and BitLocker on Windows Home and Pro covers turning it on and, importantly, saving the recovery key somewhere that isn't the encrypted drive.

For a shop PC that handles customer names, phone numbers and payment references, those two together are not paranoia. Under India's DPDP Act, GDPR and comparable laws elsewhere, holding customer data on an unencrypted shared machine with no separate logins is a genuine exposure, and the fine is not the main cost — the conversation with the customer is.

The broader checklist is in 20 things to do to protect your privacy in Windows, most of which still applies.

When It Doesn't Work: Six Symptoms

The list comes back within minutes

Working as designed. You cleared without turning tracking off. Do Job 3. This accounts for the overwhelming majority of "it didn't work" reports.

The Clear button or the tickboxes are greyed out

A policy is in force. On a work laptop, that's your IT department and you should leave it alone — on a managed device, changing it may be a disciplinary matter rather than a technical one.

On a personal machine, check HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer for a NoRecentDocsHistory value someone set previously, possibly a "privacy tweaker" utility, and delete it. Look also for a Some settings are managed by your organisation banner in Settings → Personalisation.

My pinned Quick Access folders vanished

You deleted the contents of AutomaticDestinations and took f01b4d95cf55d32a.automaticDestinations-ms with it. If you have File History or a restore point from before, that single file can be restored from it. Otherwise, re-pin them by hand — right-click a folder → Pin to Quick access. Sorry. This is why the warning above is in a red box.

Home is missing from the sidebar entirely

Either it's been hidden by a policy, or File Explorer's view state is corrupted. Try restarting Explorer first. If Home is still absent, in Folder Options set Open File Explorer to back to Home, click Restore Defaults on both the General and View tabs, and restart Explorer again.

Explorer freezes or crashes when Home loads

Usually a recent entry pointing at a network drive or a USB stick that is no longer connected — Explorer waits for a timeout on each dead path, and with several of them it looks like a hang. Clearing the list fixes it, and it's one of the more satisfying uses of the Clear button. If Explorer is unstable more generally, our guide to File Explorer crashing and freezing covers the other causes.

Everything worked, but previews still show document contents

The preview pane and thumbnails are separate from the recent list. Turn the preview pane off with Alt + P, and clear thumbnails via Disk Cleanup. Note that Windows 11 25H2 changed PDF preview behaviour — if previews stopped working on their own, that's a known 25H2 issue, not something you caused here.

Bonus: doing this on a schedule

If you'd rather not think about it, the ClearRecentDocsOnExit value handles sign-out automatically. For a machine that never signs out — a counter PC that stays on for a week — put the three del commands in a .bat file and have Task Scheduler run it nightly. While you're there, Storage Sense can clear temporary files and the Recycle Bin on the same schedule, which is the other half of the same tidying job.

Questions People Actually Ask About This

How do I remove recent files from Quick Access in Windows 11?

File Explorer → the three dots → Options → General → under Privacy, click Clear. Untick Show recently used files in the same box to stop it refilling. The section is called Home on Windows 11 rather than Quick access, but it's the same Options box.

Where is Quick Access in Windows 11?

Renamed. From version 22H2 the top sidebar item is Home, containing three groups: Quick access (pinned folders), Favourites (pinned files) and Recent (files you've opened). "Quick access" now means only the pinned-folders row inside Home.

How do I remove just one file from the recent list?

Right-click it → Remove from Recent (Windows 11) or Remove from Quick access (Windows 10). If you don't see it on Windows 11, click Show more options or press Shift + F10. The file itself is not deleted or moved.

How do I stop Windows 11 recording recent files at all?

Two switches. In Folder Options → General → Privacy, untick Show recently used files, Show frequently used folders and Show files from Office.com. Then Settings → Personalisation → Start → turn off Show recently opened items in Start, Jump Lists and File Explorer. The first hides the list; the second stops the history being written.

Can other users of the same PC see my recent files?

Only if they use the same Windows account. Recent lists are stored per account, so a separate account has a separate list with no configuration needed. If two people share one login, then yes — every file name you've opened is visible to whoever sits down next, including documents they have no permission to open.

Where are recent files actually stored in Windows?

Three folders: %AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent (a shortcut per file), ...\Recent\AutomaticDestinations (jump list data, and your Quick Access pins) and ...\Recent\CustomDestinations (app-created jump list entries). Paste the paths into the File Explorer address bar to see them.

Does clearing Quick Access delete the files themselves?

No. The list holds shortcuts, not documents. Clearing removes the pointers and the names from view; every original file stays exactly where it is. This is the most common worry about this task and the answer is a flat no.

Why do my recent files keep coming back after I clear them?

Because clearing is an action, not a setting. With Show recently used files still ticked, Windows rebuilds the list the moment you open your next document. Clearing and disabling tracking are two separate jobs, and most guides only describe the first.

The Clear button is greyed out. What now?

A policy is controlling it — either your workplace manages the PC, or something has set NoRecentDocsHistory. Check Settings → Personalisation for a "managed by your organisation" notice. On a personal machine, look under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer and remove that value.

Does clearing Quick Access also clear jump lists on the taskbar?

The Clear button does, because both read the same AutomaticDestinations folder. But unticking only the File Explorer boxes does not stop jump lists refilling — that needs the Settings → Personalisation → Start toggle. Right-click a taskbar icon afterwards to confirm.

How do I clear the Recommended section in the Windows 11 Start menu?

Right-click an entry → Remove from list for one item. To empty it permanently, Settings → Personalisation → Start → turn off Show recently opened items, Show recently added apps and Show most used apps. Windows 11 Pro also has a Remove Recommended section from Start Menu policy in gpedit.msc.

How do I clear recent documents in Word and Excel?

Office keeps its own list Windows can't touch. File → Open → Recent → right-click → Clear unpinned items. To stop it recording, File → Options → Advanced → Display → set Show this number of Recent Documents to 0. Note that Office syncs recents to your Microsoft account, so the list can reappear on another device.

How do I clear the File Explorer address bar history?

The same Clear button under Folder Options → General → Privacy clears it. If entries survive, delete the values inside HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\TypedPaths. Your typed search terms are in the neighbouring WordWheelQuery key.

How do I clear recent files automatically every time I sign out?

On Pro, enable Clear history of recently opened documents on exit in gpedit.msc under User Configuration → Administrative Templates → Start Menu and Taskbar. On Home, create a DWORD called ClearRecentDocsOnExit set to 1 under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer, then sign out and back in.

Is this enough to hide files from someone technical?

No, and it matters to say so. Clearing the list removes convenient pointers. It does not remove the files, prefetch data, the search index, event logs, shadow copies or file-system records. Anyone with real access and basic forensic tools recovers far more. For genuine separation, use separate Windows accounts and device encryption.

Are the steps different on Windows 10?

The settings are identical; the route isn't. Windows 10 uses View → Options on the ribbon instead of the three dots, calls the section Quick access rather than Home, and has no Office.com tickbox. Registry keys and folder locations are exactly the same.

What Jake Actually Did

Not all of it. Ethan told him not to.

Two Windows accounts, one each, both with a four-digit PIN so nobody has to type a password at the counter. ClearRecentDocsOnExit set on the shared till account, because that machine gets used by whoever is standing nearest. Office recent documents set to zero. Device encryption on, with the recovery key written down and kept at home rather than in the shop.

Total time: under twenty minutes. He did not turn tracking off on his own account, because jump lists are genuinely useful and his account is his.

The shop is still open, incidentally. He stayed. The letter was never sent — it just spent a fortnight telling everybody it existed.

Related Guides

Originally published August 2015 as a Windows 10 guide. Rewritten and re-tested in March 2026 on Windows 11 24H2, 23H2 and Windows 10 22H2. The 2015 version told you that clearing Quick Access dealt with your recent files; that was true then and is incomplete now, so this edition adds the jump list, Start Recommended, Office and address-bar trails, the on-disk folder locations, and an honest statement of what this method cannot do.