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 altros, and 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. Hopefully, we be able to help. :)

ddelo · 25 Mar 2019

Thanks a lot, for one more great tutorial, Shawn.

I used the .bat file for a while, but I was not happy with the Quick Access behavior, as it was clearing all frequent folders, including the ones I had pinned, as I use them regularly (my scripts folder, being an example).
So I put some time, to find how to do it and came up with an alternative to your batch file, in PowerShell.
The following script, does exactly what your batch file does, with the addition that it doesn't clear the "f01b4d95cf55d32a.automaticDestinations-ms", to preserve the Quick Access folders. Unfortunately that keeps besides the pinned ones, the unpinned folders too. So the script then clears all unpinned (not needed) folders from Quick Access.

As always, you or any other member of TenForums can modify and use it, according 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.ini, f01b4d95cf55d32a.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 Access, using 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 script, to 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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