Take Advantage Of Recent Files, Folders and Applications Lists

When looking for files, folders, apps, web pages, templates or many other things, macOS provides you with quick-access lists of recent items to make it easier to find what you want.

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Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let's take a look at accessing Recents, Files, Folders, Applications, and other things on your Mac. 
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Now when you open a file on your Mac it could be that you're opening an old file, one that you haven't used for a long time. But it is more likely that you're accessing a file that you've recently used. When you go to access something it is just more probable that the thing that you want to access is something you have recently accessed. Therefore, Apple has made it very easy to access recent things on your Mac. 
Let's start by taking a look at the Apple Menu. In here there is an item called Recent Items. There are several sections to this. The first one is Applications. It shows you recently opened Applications. Chances are one of these is the application you're going to use next. Just below it you'll see Documents. So here are files that are also the most recent ones that you accessed. By going to the Apple Menu Recent Items chances are the next action you want to take is one of these things. 
You'll also find Recent Items if you go to the File Menu in almost any applications. So for instance here in Pages if I go to File I can certainly go to Open and then find the file I want. But just underneath Open is Open Recent. Here I'm going to see a list of files. These are the most recently accessed files in Pages. So chances are the one I want to work on next is one of these files. I don't have to use the Open Dialogue at all. I can just select it from here.
Now if you do go to Open in an Application you'll get the Open Dialogue. Here you'll have a location here at the top and one of the things you'll notice is a section called Recent Places. So this actually shows you a list of Folders, locations that is, where you recently accessed files. So chances are if you're trying to open a file you can find it in a Recently used place and you can get to that in any File Open or File,Saved dialogue by just clicking here at the top and looking for Recent Places. 
Now the Dock is also another place where you can find Recent Items. If you go to an App here in the Dock, say Pages, and if you click and Hold or Control Click on it, it will bring up a Menu and you'll see the ability to Open Pages. You'll also see a list of Recently Accessed Documents in Pages. So, instead of opening Pages and then opening the document I can just choose the documents right here, open it like that, and now Pages launches and it opens that document. Once Pages is open you can still click and hold here and while there are more options here you still have the list of Recent Documents at the top. Also in the Dock on the left you'll have the Finder. If you click and hold that you're going to see a list of recently used folders. These are probably your most commonly used folders and if you need to open the Finder window and go to a specific location.
Now depending upon your Settings you may also see some recent items listed in the Dock. You go to System Settings and then go to Desktop & Dock. There's Show Suggested and Recent apps in the Dock. So now you're going to see the section here between the left section and the right section, you can see the two lines around it, that will show any apps you've opened that is not normally in the Dock. Also up to three apps that opened that are not normally in the Dock but you've recently used them. So I launched and Quit Chess and Terminal and you can see now those items are here listed in this special section because they are recently used apps that aren't normally in the Dock. 
Now there is another way to see recently accessed documents in an App. So here I'm in Pages. Now if I invoke Expose, which is Control and then Down Arrow, I will see a list of recently accessed Docs right here. I can select one and it will open. You can see I can Control Down Arrow again and I get the currently opened windows here and I could open another one here and you can see I've got two opened now. So Expose shows me the two opened ones and also still the recents here at the bottom. 
Also in the Finder you've got the Go Menu. Under Go you've got Recent Folders. You're going to see a list of Recent Folders. It is the same list that you would find in the Dock if you click and Hold the Finder. Also if you're using the Finder and you use Go and then Go To Folder, or Shift Command G, it brings up this interface here where you can type the path to a folder and then go to that folder. Notice that it actually remembers the recent ones you've typed. So, for instance, if I were to type the path to the Movies Folder in my Home Folder, like that, and go to it now if I use Go and Go To Folder then if I clear it out see under Recents it shows me that one and I can just select it. 
Now when you're in the Finder also you may see a Recents item here under Favorites in the left sidebar. You can click that to go to the Recents View or you can choose Go and then Recents even if it's not in your sidebar. If you select that then you're going to get a list of Recents. Don't confuse this with a folder or location on your Mac. This is not a location. These files are all over the place on your Hard Drive. For instance, if I select this one I can see here at the bottom that it is in Documents, Projects. But if I select this I can see it is in Documents, Examples. So this is like doing a search for your most recently opened files and then having a list of them sorted by Date, with the most recent one first. So it is an easy way to get to all your recent files. Just use the Recents View in the Finder to see them. If you want it here or don't want it here you can switch it On or Off by going to Finder, and then Settings, and then go to Sidebar. This is where you can turn On or Off Recents.
Now another way to view recent things is to use Spotlight. Just do Command Space to bring up a Spotlight Search. Now if I were to search for something, like say you type Test, one of the things it is going to show me is Documents. It is going to give me a list of Documents here with Show More next to it. The list it shows me is going to favor recent documents heavily. So these suggestions here are going to be recent ones. Now I can always click Show More and get a full file search on this. But it is interesting to note that your Spotlight results are actually showing you recent items. Furthermore you can do something like Search for Pages and then look under Documents and it is going to show you Pages documents and you can see here the little short list is the most recent ones. If I were to click Show More it's going to do the full search in the Finder and note that it can Sort easily by Date Last Opened. So you can see your most recent things in any search that you do by having the Date Last Opened column here and sorting by it. If you don't see Date Last Opened, after doing a Finder search, you an always Control Click right here in the Headers and make sure Date Last Opened is checked. 
Now most of the time when you're viewing Recent Items there's a certain number of them. Like ten right here. You have control of that. You can go to System Settings. Then under Control Center if you go all the way to the bottom you'll see Recent Documents, Applications, and Servers. There's a setting for that here. So you can set it for the default, ten, or you can go all the way up to fifty to make those lists really long. A lot of different recent lists will obey this number here, including choosing None, where it actually doesn't show Recents at all. If I chose None here this Menu would actually disappear. So if you don't see it there maybe that's why. 
Now there are other places where it could be handy to access Recent Items. For instance in a Browser. All browsers have a  browser history, like here in Safari you can go to the History Menu and you can see the recent history and then you have a variety of different days here below as well. You can also choose Show All History and it will just give you a big list. This is particularly handy if you want to go revisit some webpages from earlier in the day or maybe yesterday or the day before instead of trying to remember where you went. You can just use Show All History and then choose the webpages from there.
You'll find Recents in other places as well. For instance in Pages if you go to the Template Chooser, to choose a new document, you're going to end up with a set of Recents at the top. Notice it's an item right here. So it's going to notice the Recent Templates that you've used. Most people only use a handful of templates in Pages. So chances are the one you need next is probably just one of these. Here the same is true in Numbers as well. You can see here Recents at the top. This is all my recently used templates. So instead of going through all of these chances are I can find the one if want right here. Here's the Freeform App. In the Freeform App here under the list of boards has a list of recent boards. The Notes App also has Recents here in the left sidebar for easy access to your most recently used notes. 
So look for different ways that recent items are shown in the Apps that you use the most. You'll find that going to these Recent Lists and finding what you need there can be a lot quicker than using, say, File Open or looking at the entire list of items available to you. Hope you found this useful. Thanks for watching.

Comments: 9 Responses to “Take Advantage Of Recent Files, Folders and Applications Lists”

Larry White

8 months ago

Gary -- At the end of your video you say, "The Notes App also has Recents here in the left sidebar for easy access to your most recently used notes." Mine doesn't. I can't figure out how to get Notes to show a "Recents" label in the sidebar, as your video shows. I went to Settings under Notes -- nothing. Any hints? Thanks.

Sheldon

Thanks bunches

Ron Housley

When a recently opened file was on an attached portable hard drive, then that file never displays as a RECENT file in the Finder's "Recent" folder, right? Is there a setting that could be changed to allow these files from another volume to be reported in the Finder's Recent folder?

Jim

Hi Gary, having same problem as Larry White. Using Sonoma 14.5. Thanks.

Myron Gochnauer

What is the easiest way to find the most recently saved file from a program when you are no longer in the program? Does the OS keep track of files saved via the Save or Save-As functions in well behaved programs? I sometimes save something I have been working on, exit the program, and then discover that the file was not saved where I thought it would be.

Jane

Gary, when I first saw the title of this I thought I didn't need to watch it, but I'm glad I did. You've revealed some hidden gems that I didn't know I needed to see. Thanks!

Gary Rosenzweig

Larry and Jim: That may have been a mistake. I may have created a Smart list in Notes in a previous tutorial. But, I can tell you that in macOS Sequoia later this year, there will be Recents shown in the View menu.

Ron: I would say that if the drive is not formatted for macOS, then definitely yes. It wouldn't have a Spotlight index then. But if it is formatted for macOS, then maybe? Haven't tried it.

Myron: Re-launching the app may be the fastest way. Otherwise, you'd need to search for files of "kind" and then the app. Then short by Last Opened.