How to delete the history lists in Windows Explorer and the taskbar

Did you know that Windows stores data based on your usage behavior? This data ends up in MRU lists, which stands for Most Recently Used. These are recently opened documents, launched programs, and frequently used folders. We’ll show you how to remove this data. It’s actually pretty easy to do.

Further reading: 5 tools that integrate your cloud storage into Windows File Explorer

How to delete MRU lists

Recently opened files and folders

To see the list of recently opened files and folders, press the Win-R key combination, enter the recent command and select OK.

Windows Explorer opens with the file list. The entries displayed are shortcuts, but this is not immediately obvious. Only in the Details view does the entry Shortcut appear in the Type column. You can therefore delete the entries without deleting the associated file.

Switch off saving the list

If you don’t want Windows to continue saving the list of recently opened files, you can prevent this via the settings in Windows Explorer.

In Windows 11, click on the three dots in Explorer and then on Options. Remove the tick from the following two items, Show recently used files and Show frequently used folders. In Windows 10, you will find the Options in the View menu.

Files in the Windows 11 Start menu

Deleting under Recent doesn’t delete all MRU lists in Windows. Lists of recently used documents continue to appear in the Windows 11 Start menu.

In the Windows settings, select Privacy and security > Activity history > Delete activity history > Delete and uncheck Save my activity history on this device at the top.

Next, select Personalization > Start in the settings and set Show recently opened items in Start, Jump Lists, and File Explorer to Off.