P: Ability to remove specific files from the "recent" pane of the Home Screen [2018]

I have found a temporary fix…rename the files you want removed from your Recent list.

By @Stephen278685033tpi 

Yes, that workaround does work on both Windows and macOS.

But the more files you want to remove, the faster it is to use another method: Temporarily move the files to another location, such as a temporary subfolder or the desktop. Instead of having to rename 5 or 6 files, you can just drag them all to the other location in one second. When they disappear from the Recent list, you drag the files back to their original location.

Also, the files are not gone from the list the next time you start Photoshop. At least on my Mac, they are still in the Recent list until you try to open one, and then Photoshop displays the warning pictured below. So you still have to click each one of them before each one actually goes away. The warning shows that moving also sets up a file to be removed from the Recent list (but the warning strangely doesn’t mention renaming).

The reason renaming or moving the files sets them up to be removed from the Recent list is actually because of a different inconvenience (some would say a bug) when you do want a file to stay in the Recent list:

Photoshop links to Recent files by their folder path, of course. If anything about that path changes, the link breaks. Photoshop will not ask you to re-link to that file, it will simply give up and display that alert. (But if it is a linked Smart Object, Photoshop does let you know it can’t be found under the last filename or path location. So Photoshop already has the code to let you re-link to missing files, it just doesn’t use that code for Recent files.)

If Adobe ever fixes the bug in the previous paragraph so that renaming or moving breaks the Recent link, the “rename or move” workaround will stop working. For example, some macOS applications can continue to track and open Recent files even if they are moved or renamed. (I think they use an OS file system API to do that.) If Adobe ever upgraded Photoshop to support the self-healing Recent file list, there are users who would welcome that.

So, Adobe has three separate things to fix about the Recent list:

• A fix to clarify the warning so that it also says renaming a file can also block re-opening. 
• A feature request to let the user remove one or more arbitary files from the Recent menu, for the users who want that level of control without clearing the whole list. 
• A fix to support a self-healing Recent file list, for the users who are frustrated when they need to rename or move a file and do not want that to result in losing the file from the Recent list. 

I have found a temporary fix if people are still interested, and seeing as this post has 20k views I'm guessing people are.

This is confirmed to work in Windows 10, if you are using a different Operating System then hopefully it will also work for you.

1. Within Windows rename the files you want removed from your Recent list. 
2. Boot up or restart Photoshop, you'll see that the file is now gone from Recent Files.
3. Close Photoshop.

4. Change the file name back to what it originally was. 

Done, next time you open Photoshop the files will be gone from your Recent Files.

please add hide or remove recent event (not all of them) from the photoshop default page. for safe

This worked for me (macOS):

Move the specific file into a different folder or place in your Finder.

Go back into the home page of photoshop and click on the file that you want to remove in Recents.

A message will pop up saying "File can't be opened because it was moved or deleted." 

Click "OK" and that specific file should be removed from your recents.

*the file will not be deleted from your finder unless you literally dragged that file to the trash. I  you want to access that specific file later enter the file through Finder, not photoshop*

Hope this helps a bit.

I wanted to add one last message to show that I am indeed for real and my intentions are honourable.

After setting up PS 2023 to show some recently used sizes and files, this is a screenshot of the before and after for the execution of my app. Launching it and selecting items I wanted to delete took less than 10 seconds. It may not be as nice as doing this right from PS itself, but it’ll work for me until Adobe does something about it.

If you’re one of the millions on Facebook, look for David Vongrad and send me a PM if you’re interested. Alternatively, contact me at dvongrad66@hotmail.com. Unless there’s anything more from anyone needing my input, I’ll leave it here and wish you all the best in your Photoshop journey.

I have successfully reverse-engineered the MRU New Doc Sizes.json and Photoshop MachinePrefs.psp files and created a small Windows desktop executable to list recent document sizes and recent documents for all versions of PS where these files exist, whether or not PS is actually installed or not (ie: PS 2023 and Beta installed, PS 2021 and 2022 not installed). Using this small app, I can select everything I want to delete while PS is closed. When I relaunch PS, all sizes and documents that I chose to delete are no longer listed in PS.

As I mentioned in my previous message, I don't have the ability to create this app for a Mac. The next best alternative would be to copy the Mac files to the appropriate place on a PC, have my app do its thing, and copy the updated pref files back to the Mac. However, I can't guarantee this will work because there may be differences in the preference file structure. If someone would like to send me copies of those files, I can certainly test how the app modifies them and send them back to you. I understand if anyone is unwilling to do this because of privacy concerns.

In the meantime, if anyone would like the PC version of the app, let me know and I'm sure we can make some arrangements to get it to you. If you find that the app does not launch, you may also have to install the .NET 6.0 runtime. If I find that this proves to be a hassle for most of you wanting the app, I'll consider rewriting it using C++ so there are no .NET dependencies with C#.

If there are no takers, I know I'll be making good use of the app to perform custom deletions of document sizes and recent documents for all my installed versions of PS! 🙂

I recently contacted support about how to delete specific document size templates when I choose File > New. My aim was to delete the ever-growing custom templates of varying dimensions when I paste scene captures into PS. Their solution was to edit or delete the MRU New Doc Sizes.json file in the Preferences folder found in C:\Users\Dave\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop 2023\Adobe Photoshop 2023 Settings. I also have the beta version installed, so the same file is in C:\Users\Dave\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop (Beta)\Adobe Photoshop (Beta) Settings folder. This solution has been corroborated by several independent sources.

It was then that I found this and other threads requesting the deletion of selected items in the Recent Documents list. I found that these are listed in both the system registry and a file named MachinePrefs.psp in the same folders as above. However, this is a binary file making it very hard to read and deconstruct. Adding to the confusion is how much this file shrinks in size when the Recent Documents list is cleared in PS itself.

That said, my goal now is to use 30+ years of software development to try and reverse engineer this file to create a small app to list both the New Document templates and the Recent Documents list to selectively delete any combination of items, including all of them. Unfortunately, my development experience has been exclusively on MS-DOS and Windows PCs meaning any testing, debugging, etc. would be done on my Win 11 Pro computer. But once I'm satisfied with its operation, I would gladly pass off the source code to a Mac developer to create a Mac version of the app.

I know this approach is not exactly optimal, but I still think it would be better than having to rename/move/delete several files by hand to force PS to update its list because it can no longer find the files. It's the reverse engineering of the Prefs file that'll likely take some time.

So if anyone is still interested in a means of achieving this since it was first proposed in 2014 and yet implemented for no apparent reason, stay tuned!

Please vote for this feature request. https://community.adobe.com/t5/photoshop-ecosystem-ideas/feature-request-manage-recent-files-remove-amp-pin/idi-p/13778122#M17315

Same here. Not being able to remove specific files from the recent file list is a huge privacy issue for those of us working with several clients, under NDAs, recording videos, etc. Very easy to let it out into the world something that shouldn't be made public.

Everytime I record a video, for instance, I have to either painstakingly rename all compromising files and then click the thumbnail and then click "ok" to remove it from the list, then rename the file back to its name, or remove the entire recent file list altogether (which is inconvenient because, after all, the recent file list is useful).

One can always click another section in the home screen so that the recent file list is not shown, but it is easy to forget and then click to open a recent file, only to reveal a thumbnail you didn't want the world to see. Too late by then.

Small nuisance, but real problem. So many years without a fix... 😔

And here we are nearly five years later. Sad.