How do you delete recent file history on adobe reader?

Newest version:

Open program

Click "Edit" at the top left

Click "Documents" on the left of the pop-up

Under "Open Settings" section, highlight the 100 in the "Documents in recently used list"

The default setting is 100, change to 0 (or whatever number you prefer)

Click "OK" at the bottom

Howdy!

This is a great topic, and has partially answered many of my own questions.

I'll add an answer that directly answers the topic:

There's a Clear Recent Files button in the newest Adobe Acrobat Reader DC

I guess Adobe has listened to you!

I'm using Acrobat Mac Yosemite. Contrary to an above statement, I can set the recent docs pref to zero. Perhaps it's different on Windows.

I clear recent.

Set pref to '0'.

Close and reopen app.

I then opened a doc I'd been recently working on which was not appearing in 'recent', made a change, saved, set pref to '1', closed and re-opened app, and that doc now appears. But I don't know if the whole mess will reappear if I should now set 'recent' to 10,  50, whatever. [Edit: I have reset 'recent' to 40, and they are not reappearing, only three test-docs opened after the fix.] Hopefully Adobe has recently fixed the bug.

Adobe, we don't all want a lot of old files appearing in perpetuity, and the most recent not. That just doesn't make sense.

There is a way to remove the list of Recent Documents: After opening an Adobe .pdf document, click on Edit at the top of the screen, then click on Preferences at the bottom, then at the top choose Documents.  On the right side of the screen, it will say "Documents in recently used list" with a number in the box. Change that number to one (1), because it won't allow you to put zero.

What you can do is remove your access rights the "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Adobe\Adobe Acrobat\10.0\AVGeneral\cRecentFiles" key in the registry.

Not actually cleaning out the last opened list, more like stopping the list getting created in the first place.

1. Open regedit
2. Navigate to "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Adobe\Adobe Acrobat\10.0\AVGeneral\cRecentFiles"
3. Delete any subkeys you find there to clear out old history
4. In the left pane, right click on "cRecentFiles" & select "Permissions"
5. Click "Advanced"
6. Untick "Include inheritable permissions ..." & click "Add" when the dialog is displayed
7. Select the entry corresponding to your user name on the list & click "Remove"
8. Click "OK" twice & you are good to go

Really dont understand why Adobe dont provide an option to do this.

CCleaner can do that for you.

It is a shame that Adobe does not have any options to clear the recent files listing.

But I did come up with this workable solution.

I wrote the following registry file, and you just double-click this "reg" file to clear all "Recent File" listings.

Close the Adobe program before double-clicking the "reg" file.

Now when you open your program the "Recent File" listings will be all clear.

For Acrobat and Acrobat Pro:

In Notepad, copy and paste the following 2 lines between the dashed lines, then save it as "Adobe Acrobat Clear Recent.reg"

Include the quotes.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Adobe\Adobe Acrobat\10.0\AVGeneral\cRecentFiles]

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For Adobe Reader:

In Notepad, copy and paste the following 2 lines between the dashed lines, then save it as "Adobe Reader Clear Recent.reg"

Include the quotes.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\10.0\AVGeneral\cRecentFiles]

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Good luck and enjoy!

John from Colorado