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Remove items from Frequent Places list in File Explorer on Windows 10

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Windows 10 has many new features in File Explorer. The other day, someone asked me how to remove the Frequent places list from the File Explorer in Windows 10. Frequent places are listed in Windows File Explorer when you click on the ‘File’ tab.

Remove items from Frequent Places list in Explorer

win8freqfilelist1

Looking at the screenshot, the first thing you might try is to click on ‘Delete History’ shown along with the Frequent places list, which provides options for clearing Recent places list and the Address bar history.

win8freqfilelist2

If you try with ‘Recent places list’, it won’t remove what we want to remove, i.e., the items in the ‘Frequent places’ list because Frequent places is not the same Recent places list. This Frequent places list is connected with the Jump lists properties.

For this, right-click on Taskbar, click on Properties for Taskbar Properties and click on ‘Jump Lists’ tab

Remove items from Frequent Places list in File Explorer on Windows 10

Now uncheck ‘Store and display recently opened items in Jump Lists’ and you will see ‘Number of recent items to display in Jump Lists’ turns to 0. Click Apply/OK.

You will see that the items in the list get removed from File Explorer!

win8freqfilelist4

If you don’t want the List to be removed completely, you can just reduce or increase the ’Number of recent items to display in Jump Lists’, keeping the ‘Store and display recently opened items in Jump Lists’  checked.

If you keep it checked but set the ’Number of recent items to display in Jump Lists:’ to 0, the list gets cleared for now but will populate again and show the new list as you start using the File Explorer.

Note: This feature is not available in Windows 11. Even if you enable old File Explorer in Windows 11, you cannot find this option.

Read: How to get rid of Frequent Folders in Windows

How do I delete frequent locations in File Explorer?

To delete frequent locations in the File Explorer in Windows 10, you need to click on the File menu and select the Delete history option. Following that, you can find two options – Recent places list and Address bar history. You need to select the Recent places list option. Alternatively, you can set the number of recent items to display in Jump Lists as 0.

Read: How to delete Recent Files and Folders in Windows.

This is a small tip but will surely help those who are confused as to how to go about clearing this ‘Frequent Places’ list.

I hope this helps!

Vasudev@TWC

The author has been a Microsoft MVP awardee in various Windows categories (2006-2016) and currently a Windows Insider MVP. A Technology Enthusiast, interested in anything technical and is committed to Microsoft technologies and products. He is actively associated with various Microsoft online communities, forums, Newsgroups and has been actively involved in Beta testing various Microsoft products and bug submissions.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  2. AZ says

    that worked great! any tips on how to remove FREQUENT list that opens when you open a new tab in Internet Explorer?

  6. Vasudev says

    You meant the Frequent Site list with Very active listed at first and less active in list? There’s ‘Hide sites’ option at end. If you dont want to show these at all, then Tools>Internet option>General>Click on ‘Tabs’ >When a new tab is opened, Open > Select >Blank Page >OK , Apply So next time you open a new tab, A blank page is opened

  9. Jack says

    This doesn’t work for me. No matter how many times I clear the list by resetting it to zero, when I re-enable it to display two items, it repopulates the list until it again has an unwieldy and uselessly long number of entries.

  10. Máy Tính Cao Trào says

    I don’t find task bar to right click and to show popup “Taskbar Properties”
    Help me! thanks so much

  18. SwahiliWizz says

    Vasudev,
    For my Windows 8.1, the removal of “frequent places” works different to what you describe for Windows 8. For me, your first option (delete history, frequent places list) DOES clear the “frequent places” list, leaving the “jump list” of File Explorer untouched (not cleared).
    Also, the mouse-over popup text for “delete history, frequent places list” in my Windows 8.1 states:
    “delete the list of recent items and locations”.
    Translating this Microsoft “Windows-Speak”, this means this default Windows 8.1 command:
    1. deletes all items in “recent items” list;
    2. deletes all items in “recent places” list.

    Any explanation for my Windows 8.1 anomaly?

  19. vasudevG says

    Hi SwahiliWizz, please check again…”Frequent places is not the same Recent places list.”
    When you click on ‘File’ in Explorer , the list you see is the Frequent
    places list.And this list is NOT related to ‘Delete History’ >
    Recent places list and so Frequent Places will not be cleared by
    clicking on ‘Recent places list’ button.

  26. Stephen says

    Thank you so much! Been trying to figure out how to do this for the past hour. Perfectly written article and easy to understand. Very helpful!

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