Reset and Clear Recent Items and Frequent Places in Windows 10

altros · 20 Mar 2018

Thanks a lot for the bat file fix that sorted this many year problem out!!

Brink · 20 Mar 2018

You're most welcome altrosand welcome to Ten Forums. :)

altros · 21 Mar 2018

It also fixed my W10 search feature which has never worked before so thx for that too. My hate of W10 has reduced substantialy!

Brink · 21 Mar 2018

Be sure to post about any other issues you may be having with Windows 10 in the forum. Hopefullywe be able to help. :)

ddelo · 25 Mar 2019

Thanks a lotfor one more great tutorialShawn.

I used the .bat file for a whilebut I was not happy with the Quick Access behavioras it was clearing all frequent foldersincluding the ones I had pinnedas I use them regularly (my scripts folderbeing an example).
So I put some timeto find how to do it and came up with an alternative to your batch filein PowerShell.
The following scriptdoes exactly what your batch file doeswith the addition that it doesn't clear the "f01b4d95cf55d32a.automaticDestinations-ms"to preserve the Quick Access folders. Unfortunately that keeps besides the pinned onesthe unpinned folders too. So the script then clears all unpinned (not needed) folders from Quick Access.

As alwaysyou or any other member of TenForums can modify and use itaccording to his/her needs.

Code:

Write-Host "`nClearing . . . " -NoNewline

Get-ChildItem $env:APPDATA\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\* -File -Force -Exclude desktop.ini | 
Remove-Item -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
Get-ChildItem $env:APPDATA\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\AutomaticDestinations\* -File -Force -Exclude desktop.inif01b4d95cf55d32a.automaticDestinations-ms | 
Remove-Item -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
Get-ChildItem $env:APPDATA\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\CustomDestinations\* -File -Force -Exclude desktop.ini | 
Remove-Item -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

# Clear unpinned folders from Quick Accessusing the Verbs() method
$UnpinnedQAFolders = (0,0)
While ($UnpinnedQAFolders) {
    $UnpinnedQAFolders = (((New-Object -ComObject Shell.Application).Namespace("shell:::{679f85cb-0220-4080-b29b-5540cc05aab6}").Items() | 
    where IsFolder -eq $true).Verbs() | where Name -match "Remove from Quick access")
    If ($UnpinnedQAFolders) { $UnpinnedQAFolders.DoIt() }
}

Write-Host "Done!`n"
Stop-Process -Name explorer -Force

Remove-Variable UnpinnedQAFolders

Updated scriptto cleanup older unpinned folders in Quick Access

f23948 · 26 Apr 2019

Does bat file work in Win10 1809?

Brink · 26 Apr 2019

btv7 said:

Does bat file work in Win10 1809?

It does.

f23948 · 26 Apr 2019

Oh ok cool thank you Brink

S Malik · 15 Jan 2020

I have a Windows 10 Pro version1909. I can't find these locations on my system:
%AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\AutomaticDestinations
%AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\CustomDestinations
or
%AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent

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