Recently I have been playing around with MS Office 2007.
The new interface looks great, and by the time you get used to it, I think that you’d never want to go back to previous versions.
By pressing the round Office Button, which is located on the top left corner of each Office application, the “File” menu is being displayed. On the right side of this menu, there is a useful list of the recently used documents. The number of the “Recent Documents” to be displayed can be changed through the Advanced options. However there is no option to delete this list of files.
Imagine that you share a computer with other people, and you wish to view some private Office files, and then leave no trace behind. Well, I did a search on the Windows Registry, and found the keys that store these information.
For Word 2007, use the Registry Editor (type regedit on the Start->Run menu), and navigate to:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Word\File MRU
Delete some or all of the listed items on the right frame, and restart Word 2007 to see the changes.
This works with all Office applications, not just Word, simply navigate to the appropriate registry entry.
The image below is showing the Excel 2007 “Recent Documents” data on the Registry.
Thanks a lot for this, was driving me mad.
me too, thanks
Or you could just turn off and then back on the Recently used file list setting. Not sure where the Option is for 2007 but all the other versions of Office select Tools, Options, the Genral tab. About half way down is the Recently used file list Just uncheck the option and Press ok. Go back and recheck it to turn it back on. The default number of files to remember is 4 So if it was set to a different number change it back press ok and the functionality is still there but the list is cleared.
Click Office Button – located in the left corner.
Click word options (or whatever program you are using).
Click Advanced and scroll down to Display.
Set Show this number of Recent Documents to 0.
Mamisita is 100% correct for all apps EXCEPT the ones I note below:
Microsoft Office Publisher 2007:
To clear the list of recently used files in Publisher 2007,
1. Exit Publisher 2007.
2. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
3. Delete the following registry subkey:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Publisher\Recent File List
4. Exit Registry Editor.
For Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007
1. Exit SharePoint Designer 2007.
2. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
3. Delete the following registry subkeys:
• HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\SharePoint Designer\Recent File List
• HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\SharePoint Designer\Recent Page List
• HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\SharePoint Designer\Recent Web List
4. Exit Registry Editor.
Chris and mamisita, thank you both for the contribution.
Thanks mamisita , yours worked like a charm ! ; )
Cheerio
THANK YOU!!!!!!
Thanks Mamisita! I completely missed that part. I looked at that area for 10 minutes.
Wondering if there is a simple way of just removing one ortwo items from the list without going into regedit?
Other posts refer to the destructive cursor ctrl + Alt + hyphen (using the one at the top of the key board not the numeric keypad). This works well in XP but I can’t get it to work in Word 2007 or is it the underlying Vista Ultimate htat has disabled this?
In XP it means you just activate then point to the item in the menu you wish to delete and it is gone.
This is the recent documents list in Word 2007 I was referring to sorry.
Mamasita, your way works fine for the recent documents displayed in the panel on the right when clicking in the round button.- But if i go to Open option under the round button menu on the left hand side i still have my recent documents displayed in the Recent documents tab….bahhhhh anoying this thing I’m going to try altering the register as suggested above, thanks everybody for your efforts on this.
this article is very useful
Round button -> Open -> Look in: My Recent Documents -> Tools (bottom left of the Open window) -> Clear Document History.
Registry editing should be saved for things that absolutely can’t be done any other way and only after you have made a CD\External HDD backup of your registry.
thanks to you mamisita
Very nice!!
Thanks Mamisita!!!
Thank you so much . You really helped. Meanwhile I have to put lots of shame for people in Microsoft who created the works, but did not provide users with solutions, it is very irresponsible of them. I was getting headache on how to delete the recent documents until I saw your article. Thank you so much for your help and shame on people in Microsoft.
Thanks!!!!!
Thanks everyone for the tips. One minor glitch in Access:
The suggestion above by GDP/mamasita to use the office app feature to set the displayed recent documents to 0 then back worked fine for Word & Excel, but in Access the filenames returned (even if I exited in between) when I set the # back to 9. SO in Word & Excel, setting it to zero clears the list, but in Access, setting it to zero simply stops displaying the list but doesn’t clear it.
Thank you all for these tips and explanations. They worked great and now I do not get frustrated every time I use one of the programs.
Thank you.
Ideally, it would be nice if you had option so users do NOT see recent data files in Office for other users.
Just consider if you have a laptop that you let “guests” use. How would your work or private Word recent doc list be of relevance to them?
What about on a mac? If you just change the number to zero through the office program they come back after you change the number back which does not work if you want to clear them? What is the equivalent of editing the registry on a mac to clear those files out. And why the hell does M$ make it so you have to edit the registry to clear your own history? Shouldn’t be so hard. Firefox doesn’t require you to do that. Sorry about banter, no need to actually speculate, i just can’t believe that it seems impossible to clear the recent document history for MS office on a mac. And M$ own support pages and help file within the software has no answer.
Look at Banichi’s post. You might find it useful.
Mamasita = legend, thankyou!