InDesign Recent Items to Display Greyed Out

[jvrichardson]

Windows 10 64-bit Pro

InDesign CC (updated)

Recently, for all users on our subscription, we are not able to see recent items in InDesign.

Preferences > File Handling > Saving InDesign Files > Number of Recent Items to Display: 0 is greyed out, so we cannot change this number.

No settings that we are aware of have been modified, and this just started happening within the last few days. Any information on how we can get that box ungreyed is appreciated!

[jane-e]

Did you try quitting and resetting the preferences?

[Steve Werner]

Here's how you reset (or restore) preferences:

Trash, Replace, Reset, or Restore the application Preferences

[jvrichardson]

This link is very outdated, just an FYI. I can't reply to anything in that discussion because it's locked, but the Windows 10 file paths are completely different:

C:\Users\<USER>\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\InDesign\Version 13.0\en_US (InDesign Defaults)

C:\Users\<USER>\AppData\Local\Adobe\InDesign\Version 13.0\en_US\Caches (InDesign SavedData)

I did already reset both of those.

[jvrichardson]

We have also tried changing the Windows 10 settings:

• Start
  1. Show recently added apps
  2. Show recently opened items in the Jump Lists on Start or in the taskbar

Neither option ungreys the "Number of Recent Items to Display" box in InDesign > File Handling > Preferences.

The recent items DO appear if we right-click on the taskbar InDesign icon and use the Windows menu of recent items.

Also tried deleting the InDesign Default and InDesign SavedData files again, no change. The recent items list in InDesign is completely blank and that Number of Recent Items to Display box is still 0 and greyed out.

InDesign is updated to version 13.1 x64

[Srishti Bali]

Hi there,

We are very sorry for this frustrating situation. Please give another chance of resetting preferences by following these steps:

• Close all Adobe applications.
• Go to Locations :
• C:\Users\user\AppData\Roaming\Adobe
• C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\Adobe.
• Delete or Rename InDesign folders.
• Launch InDesign from CC.

If it still does not help, try reinstalling the application and removing all associated folders.

Close all Adobe applications

Uninstall Indesign from the creative cloud: https://indesignsecrets.com/uninstall-reinstall-indesign-cc.php

Remove all InDesign folders from

• C:\Users\user\AppData\Roaming\Adobe
• C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\Adobe
• C:\Program Files\Adobe
• Reinstall InDesign from creative cloud

We are looking forward to your response. Hope this helps!

Regards,

Srishti

[jvrichardson]

I completed a full uninstall/reinstall today and deleted the folders you specified after the uninstall. After the reinstall, I opened InDesign, opened a few files, and then closed. I re-opened and there are still no items shown in the recent list. Saving InDesign Files in File Handling Preferences is still greyed out and I cannot change it from "0". I've also tried running InDesign as administrator and I still cannot change that preference.

This is affecting a minimum of four computers in our office, all on Windows 10 and running an up-to-date version of InDesign. I will check with other users to determine how many more computers have the same problem.

[Srishti Bali · Accepted solution]

Hi,

In this case, I would request you to please contact our support team(Contact Customer Care ) for live troubleshooting. They will be able to look into your issue on a live remote session.

Regards,

Srishti

[jvrichardson]

I now believe the issue to be a result of a server GPO. If anyone has any information relating to how Windows is utilized to create the recent items list in InDesign, please let me know. That will help me in tracking down the GPO that is causing this. I've reviewed each policy and I do not see a direct connection that immediately jumps out at me, but if I knew which Windows components were assisting in generating the list of recent documents, that would help significantly.

[jvrichardson]

We have since determined it was not a GPO issue. Photoshop and Illustrator show the recent files just fine, and I can edit the Recent File List Contains box in either of those two softwares. I just cannot edit in InDesign for any user on any computer.

[Steve Werner]

Have you tried restoring your preferences in InDesign? The preferences there are totally independent of those for Illustrator or Photoshop. Preference problems can cause this kind of issue.

[jvrichardson]

Yes, I have mentioned multiple times on this ticket that we already deleted/reset the files located here:

C:\Users\<USER>\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\InDesign\Version 13.0\en_US (InDesign Defaults)

C:\Users\<USER>\AppData\Local\Adobe\InDesign\Version 13.0\en_US\Caches (InDesign SavedData)

There was no change following this for any users on any computer.

[Steve Werner]

Then you probably need to do what Srishti suggested:

"In this case, I would request you to please contact our support team(Contact Customer Care ) for live troubleshooting. They will be able to look into your issue on a live remote session.'

[jvrichardson]

Yes, I have reset both the SavedData and InDesign Defaults preference files and re-opened InDesign. It is still greyed out for me, so I am assuming it will not work for our other users, either.

[Touqeer9045]

Hi,

I was facing this same issue, and was able to narrow it down to to 1 specific GPO.

User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Start Menu & Task Bar > Remove Recent Items menu from Start Menu.

seems to be linked somehow, soon as I left it Not Configured in GPO, the Recent Items options would appear normal, once this GPO was set as Enabled, the Recent Itemsto Display would appear greyed out.

I'm using Windows 11 professional, local acocunt only, personal laptopso no Domain accounts.

[ansehelm00144]

This seems to be the case for me as well. I am using Windows 10, and as soon as the said GPO is set to Not Configured, InDesign's recent items would be functioning normally again.