Windows 10: Create Recent Items Shortcut in Windows 10

How to: Create Recent Items Shortcut in Windows 10

How to Create a Recent Items Shortcut in Windows 10


Information Recent items is a list of the files that you have used or opened recently. These items are displayed as "Recent files" in Quick access, and under "Recent" in jump lists on the Start menu and taskbar.

This tutorial will show you how to download or create a Recent items shortcut that opens directly to your Recent Items folder in File Explorer in Windows 10.


CONTENTS:

• Option One: To Download a Recent Items Shortcut
• Option Two: To Manually Create a Recent Items Shortcut

EXAMPLE: Recent Items












OPTION ONE [/i] To Download a Recent Items Shortcut
1. Click/tap on the Download button below to download the .zip file below.
Recent_Items_shortcut.zip

Download
2. Save the .zip file to your desktop.

3. Unblock the .zip file.

4. Open the .zip file, and extract (drag and drop) the shortcut to your desktop.

5. If you like, you can assign a keyboard shortcut to, or move this shortcut to where you like for easy use.

6. When finished, you can delete the downloaded .zip file if you like.







OPTION TWO [/i] To Manually Create a Recent Items Shortcut
1. Right click or press and hold on an empty area on your desktop, and click/tap on New and Shortcut.

2. Copy and paste the location below into the location area, and click/tap on Next. (see screenshot below)
*Arrow %AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent




3. Type Recent Items for the name, and click/tap on the Finish button. (see screenshot below)
NOTE: You could name this shortcut anything you would like though.



4. If you like, you can assign a keyboard shortcut to, or move this shortcut to where you like for easy use.



That's it,
Shawn


Related Tutorials

• How to Create a Recent Folders Shortcut in Windows 10
• How to Turn On or Off 'Recent Items' and 'Frequent Places' in Windows 10
• How to Reset and Clear Recent Items and Frequent Places in Windows 10

:)

 

Windows 10 commands/shortcuts/env. var.

Keyboard shortcuts to open programs:

Create a shortcut on the desktop to whatever program you want. Right click -> Properties and fill in the field there. Sadly the shortcut needs to remain on the desktop, but you can hide it.

Fun fact: If you had keyboard shortcuts for programs pinned to your Windows 7 start menu, those shortcuts still work when you update to Windows 10.

 

Recently used items does not show after a recent Windows update

Hello Timothy,

Thank you for posting your concern in Microsoft Community and we regret for the inconvenience. Let me assist you.

To be able to assist you better, let us know a few more details on the below questions.

1) Did you make any recent changes to the computer?

2) Did you check if similar issues occur when logged in to the computer using a different user account?

3) Do you have any system restore point set prior to the issue?

To check if there is any Restore Point already created, follow the below steps.

• 
  Press Windows key + X, select System.
  
• 
  In the left pane, click on System Protection.
  
• 
  Select the option to system restore > next. It will show all restore points already created.
  

4) What is the particular Windows update you are referring to?

To do so, you need to check the settings through Windows update. Follow the below steps.

• Open the Settings Charm with the shortcut Windows Key
  
  +
  I.
• Click/tap Change PC settings.
• Click on the Update and recovery and click on the View your update history.
  
• You will now see a list of your installed Windows Updates. If you click on any one of the
  "Successfully installed on (date)" links

As an initial step towards troubleshooting, I suggest you to check if the 'recently used item' feature is hidden. If yes, uncheck the options. Follow the below steps.

• Right click on Taskbar and choose Properties.
• Select the tab Start Menu.
• Uncheck both the options for:
  
  1) Store and display recently opened programs in the Start Menu
  
  2) Store and display recently opened items in the Start Menu and the Task Bar
• Also select a higher number recent items to display in Jump List

If the above does not apply, please follow the below suggested methods and check in case if it is a functionality issue in Windows.

Method 1

This issue may happen due to system file corruption. I suggest you to run System file checker. System File checker (SFC) scan is done to check if there are any corrupted system files that could be causing this issue. Kindly follow
the below given steps:

• 
  Press Windows key + X, select
  Command prompt (Admin) to bring up elevated Command prompt.
  
• 
  In Command prompt type
  sfc/scannow and press enter.
  
• 
  Restart the computer.
  

Ref: Using System File Checker
in Windows 10

Method 2

If no corrupted system files were found in the previous state or were irrecoverable, then I suggest you to try the following steps to deploy the DISM command lines:

• 
  Press Windows key + X.
  
• 
  Click command prompt (Run as administrator).
  
• 
  In the Administrator: Command Prompt window, type the following commands. Press Enter key after each command:
  
  DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Scanhealth
  
  DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth
  
  To close the Administrator: Command prompt window, type Exit, and then press Enter.
  

Write to us with the updated status and the required information for us to be able to assist you further.

 

See Recent Items and Customize Start Menu

In addition: Add or Remove Items for All Apps in Start menu in Windows 10

For a Recent Items shortcut to use with the above: Create Recent Items Shortcut in Windows 10

 

Windows 10: store and display recently opened items

Hi,

Thank you for being a part of Windows 10.

I would suggest you to try the following steps and see if that helps.

a. Click on Start.

b. Click on Settings.

c. Click on Personalization.

d. Click on Start option.

e. Disable ‘ Show recently opened items in jumped list on Start or the task bar’.

Hope this helps. Let us know if you have any other issues with Windows in future.

 

How to increase the number of items shown in "Recent Folders" folder in Windows 10, or "Recent Items" folder.

So I wanted a Desktop shortcut and an entry in Quick Access in any Explorer folder's sidebar to let me see a good sized list of recent folder I had opened.

For the 1st I followed these instructions:

Create Recent Folders Shortcut in Windows 10

Nice. NOTE: You can pin that to the Taskbar or Startmenu if desired.

For the 2nd I followed these instructions:

https://www.winhelponline.com/blog/...ces-navigation-pane-windows-10-file-explorer/

And followed thru to pin that to Quick Access.

(After opening I add a column for "Date Accessed" and sort it based on that.)

BUT: the numer items listed in the resulting Quick Access folder seems capped at an odd arbitrary 33 items.

I wanted to increase that to 50, just to have a longer historical list of folders I had opened in the recent past.

SOOOO.... I Googled up these instructions for a small registry hack:

https://www.howtogeek.com/267705/how-to-increase-the-number-of-jump-list-items-in-windows-10/

which adds a registry entry "JumpListItems_Maximum" in the appropriate place in the registry to set the legth of Widows' "Jump Lists." In my case I set the decimal value to 50, then used File,
Exit to properly close RegEdit. The article says that should instantly increase the number of "Recent" type listings to 50.

I closed all open "Recent Folders" folders I had opened earlier, then I opened some new folders and then tried both the Desktop shortcut and the Quick Access link, HOWEVER, the number of items in both is still capped at 33.

Has that capability be removed or is there some other way to do what I am trying to do?

NOTE: I can also go to C:\Users\<my userame>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Recent (I created a desktop shortcut to that) then put kind=folder in the Search box.

THAT list seems capped at 36 long. Weird. Still a cap but slightly longer.

This all seems arbitrary, and capped at 33 and 36, respectively.

Help me understand how those folders work, if there really is any way to control their length, and why that Jump List length Registry hack no longer works.

THANKS.