Inspiring

Answered

Clear Recent Files in Illustrator Issue

Forum|Forum|8 years ago
August 13, 2017
4 replies
94267 views

Question:

Is there a fix for this?

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

Goal:

Clear Recently Open Files in Illustrator CC 2017

The First Steps I Took:

In Menu Bar...Illustrator CC>Preferences>File Handling & Clipboard

Change Number of Recent Files to Display from Default 20 to 0

Close Illustrator

Reopen Illustrator

Fixed!

Next Steps (Change Settings Back):

Open Illustrator Preferences

File Handling & Clipboard

Change Number of Recent Files from 0 to Back to the default of 20

Close Illustrator

Re-Open Illustrator

Problem:

The old history of 20 Recently Opened Files is back.

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

STEP1: Preferences>File Handling & Clipboard

Step 3:

Restart Illustrator (Close & Open Again)

Appears as though problem resolved

What I wanted....but,

Step 4:

Go Back to Preferences...File Handling & Clipboard... Change back to 20

Quit Illustrator

Reopen Illustrator

Problem: All of the old history returns

recent files

This topic has been closed for replies.

Correct answer jane-e

mikejmurphy wrote
Question:
Is there a fix for this?
---------------------
Goal:
Clear Recently Open Files in Illustrator CC 2017

Mike,

If it is imperative that you clear that list, here is one way:

Quit Illustrator
Relaunch, delelting Preferences as you do.
Because you are on a Mac, hold down Cmd+Shift+Opt+Ctrl, then Open Illustrator. You won't get a dialog box as you do in ID and PS, but your recent files will be clear.

Mark Simonson

New Participant

If you have one or more recent files in the list you don't want, say, your boss to see that you opened, one simple workaround is to open enough other Illustrator files until the offending one(s) are pushed off the bottom of the list.

chromax

Known Participant

An Dev at Adobe, please invest 5min für an option to delete the recent list. That can be that complex. 😵‍💫

rterry1

Participating Frequently

Right? Photoshop has had a "Clear Recent File List" option under File > Open for a LONG time now, while Illustrator has been missing it for 5+ years. It'd be nice if Adobe would focus on improving/finishing their existing features, rather than releasing a buggy new version every year with features that the overwhelming majority of users won't even use. I'm not at all surprised by any of this, but am continuously amazed by Adobe's incompetence as an "iNdUsTrY lEaDeR".

A

Anubhav M

Community Manager

Hello @rterry1, @chromax,

Sorry to hear about this experience and for the late response. Illustrator currently does not have this functionality. Would you mind upvoting this UserVoice (https://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657-illustrator-desktop-feature-requests/suggestions/43218300-clear-delete-from-recent-files) and adding your comments there? Doing this will help us prioritize this feature request, and you will keep getting all the related updates.

Feel free to reach out if you need further assistance. We'd be happy to help.

Thanks,

Anubhav

jane-eCorrect answer

Community Expert

mikejmurphy wrote
Question:
Is there a fix for this?
---------------------
Goal:
Clear Recently Open Files in Illustrator CC 2017

Mike,

If it is imperative that you clear that list, here is one way:

Quit Illustrator
Relaunch, delelting Preferences as you do.
Because you are on a Mac, hold down Cmd+Shift+Opt+Ctrl, then Open Illustrator. You won't get a dialog box as you do in ID and PS, but your recent files will be clear.

mikejmurphyAuthor

Inspiring

Thanks Jane-e.

I would not say my interest in doing so is imperative or urgent, but probably something Adobe could address as a bug, since it works exactly the same on indesign and not even available as an option in some Of the CC apps.

I'm familiar with that technique as that is how you have to do it with Premier and After Effects. I do appreciate you taking the time to help.

I think my question has been solved/answered, but issue still unresolved.

Thanks all-

mike

jane-e

Community Expert

Hi Mike, sometimes when people ask this, they have a document or two that they don't want their boss or co-workers to see!

I agree that it would be nice if it worked the way it does in InDesign. If you want the Illustrator team to see it, the correct way is to fill out a feature request or bug report form. You can do this from the Help menu, I am pretty sure. (I am on my iPad right now.) They read everything that comes in that way.

Bill Silbert

Community Expert

Did you have a document window open when making your changes? Any changes to the preferences that need to be global should be made without an open document. Then, as you have already been doing, you should quit the program after the changes have been made and anything that is actually controlled by the preference file should now be part of the preferences globally when the program is reopened.

mikejmurphyAuthor

Inspiring

Thanks for the reply Bill.

I did not have any Illustrator documents open when I made this post. Just to be sure, I tried again. This time I closed every single application on Mac, restarted my computer and tried again with only Illustrator open and no documents and the same issue occurred.

It clears everything when I set to 0. When I make the changes back to 20 and restart, everything comes back.

Mike

STEP1: Preferences>File Handling & Clipboard

Step 3:

Step 4:

Problem: All of the old history returns

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Scanning file for viruses.

This file cannot be downloaded