1 Correct answer
Photoshop is an image editor. You can use File > Save As or Save a Copy.
I frequently use Adobe Bridge, a free assets management tool alongside Photoshop. Or I rename files from my operating system's file manager -- Windows File Explorer or Mac Finder.
I always retain original work files on my personal computer, which gets backed up nightly to a dedicated cloud backup & recovery service. You can never be too careful with data.
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Here's the screenshot I mention above.
 
By ali_4619
The message is referring to the original files and their name or location, not the "shortcut" or "alias" shown in Phtoshop's home screen or recent files menu, which can't be edited.
This is just a "helpful feature" to list recently opened documents and is easily broken if files are renamed or moved. This is similar to a shortcut in Windows or alias on the Mac breaking if a file is renamed or moved.
You should know where files are located and take care not to rename, move or delete them if this will create problems.
Unfortunately there is no way to edit the Recent Files list.
We can clear the entire list:
And we can set the number of files that appear in the list
Resetting Preferences will also clear the list, but they are the only ways we can affect the list.
Maybe one could have a script that would get the locations of the recent files and put them in a list, where they could then be opened in Windows Explorer to be renamed or deleted.
That is certainly possible via scripting, but keep in mind that is editing the originals, not the alias/shortcut/pointers to the images that Photoshop stores in an unknown location and format.
Deleting a file in the list might cause glitches later, so the script should maybe rebuild the recent files list after the editing.
By Semaphoric
I don't believe that Adobe made this possible via scripting, and AFAIK, Adobe has never divulged where this information is stored or whether it can be accessed.
Users have asked for the ability to remove items selectively and to pin items for years now. We can't pin and there are only hacks to selectively remove individual files by moving or renaming them outside of Photoshop, before going back to Photoshop and attempting to access the now invalid entry in order to clear it.
Another option is to just clear the list of all recent items and then set it to show zer0 recent files and be done with it.
A script can be used to open files without populating the recent menu or home screen:
/*
Open Files Without Populating the Open Recent list.jsx
Stephen Marsh
*/
#target photoshop
var selectFile = File.openDialog("Please select the file/s:", Multiselect = true);
for (var i = 0; i < selectFile.length; i++) {
var openFiles = app.open(File(selectFile[i]));
}
Another option could be to use my "Photoshop Session Manager" script to save & restore Photoshop open document sessions, which isn't thumbnail view based, but text based and is intended for multiple open images, not opening single ad-hoc images:
Maybe one could have a script that would get the locations of the recent files and put them in a list, where they could then be opened in Windows Explorer to be renamed or deleted.
By Semaphoric
That is certainly possible via scripting, but keep in mind that is editing the originals, not the alias/shortcut/pointers to the images that Photoshop stores in an unknown location and format.
This script will create a text report on the desktop containing the paths and filenames of the files in the recent files menu. Note that all files are returned until the menu is cleared, regardless of the value set to display N number of recent files. The report is grouped into valid and invalid files, with invalid being files that have been renamed or moved and will no longer be accessible.
/*
Recent Files Report.jsx
Stephen Marsh
v1.0 - 23rd of February 2025: tested on Mac and Windows
~ This script generates a report of the recent files in Photoshop, classifying them as valid or invalid based on their existence on disk.
~ The report is saved to the desktop as a text file and opened in the default text editor.
https://community.adobe.com/t5/photoshop-ecosystem-discussions/photo-rename-and-delete-from-home-page-of-photoshop/td-p/15170183
*/
#target photoshop
// Ensure we have access to the app object
if (app.documents.length > 0 || app.recentFiles.length > 0) {
var recentFiles = app.recentFiles;
var validFiles = [];
var invalidFiles = [];
var validFilesCount = 0;
var invalidFilesCount = 0;
// Loop through recent files and classify them as valid or invalid
for (var i = 0; i < recentFiles.length; i++) {
if (fileExists(recentFiles[i])) {
validFiles.push(formatPathForOS(recentFiles[i]));
} else {
invalidFiles.push(formatPathForOS(recentFiles[i]));
}
}
// Prepare the content for the text file
var content = "Valid recent files:\n";
for (var i = 0; i < validFiles.length; i++) {
content += validFiles[i] + "\n";
validFilesCount++;
}
content += "\nInvalid recent files:\n";
for (var i = 0; i < invalidFiles.length; i++) {
content += invalidFiles[i] + "\n";
invalidFilesCount++;
}
// Write the content to a text file on the desktop
var file = new File("~/Desktop/Recent_Files_Report.txt");
file.open("w");
file.write(content);
file.close();
alert("Report Completed!" + "\r\r" + "Number of valid recent files: " + validFilesCount + "\r\r" + "Number of invalid recent files: " + invalidFilesCount + "\r\r" + "The report has been saved to your desktop as " + file.name);
// Open the file in the default text editor
file.execute();
} else {
alert("No recent files found.");
}
function fileExists(filePath) {
var file = new File(filePath);
return file.exists;
}
function formatPathForOS(filePath) {
try {
// Create a File object which will handle path formatting automatically
var fileObj = new File(filePath);
// fsName provides the platform-specific path format
return fileObj.fsName;
} catch (e) {
// Return original path if conversion fails
return filePath;
}
}
https://prepression.blogspot.com/2017/11/downloading-and-installing-adobe-scripts.html
The answer to this is different depending on which Home screen view you are using.
If it’s set to Home view (which is how it is in your screen shot), then you see only local files that you’ve opened recently. If you click one and you see the message that it can’t open it because it’s been moved or deleted, whatever changed happened out in the folders on your computer desktop. In the Home view, Photoshop remembers the files based on the name and folder path of each file the last time it was opened (exactly the same way a web browser or video editing app tracks files), so if the files are moved or renamed on the computer desktop, the Home view will lose track of them (exactly the same way a web browser or video editing app can lose the link to files), and then you see the message.
If you see that error message on the Home screen, it means Photoshop lost track of a file you want to reopen because its name or path changed out on the desktop. So, the solution is to find it on your computer desktop and open it into Photoshop from there. If it got deleted, try dragging it out of the Recycle Bin on the desktop if it’s still in there. If you don’t know where it went, you can use Windows search to find it on your desktop (e.g. by filename, by date modified, etc.).
And if you want to rename or delete a file listed in the Home view, you must do it out on your computer desktop. It can’t be done from the Home view in Photoshop.
If it’s set to Your Files, that lists only Photoshop cloud documents, and does not list any locally stored files. In this view you can rename and delete files, using the familiar ellipsis (…) menu as shown in the picture below.
It isn’t clear why both views don’t give us similar features like renaming and deleting. I guess you can think of the Home view as like the File > Open Recent menu, because the Home view works very much like the Open Recent menu in Photoshop and many other applications, in that they don’t usually let you edit that Recent list.
Hi Trevor, as far as I can remember the Your Files screen has always been cloud storage. For Photoshop, it shows all Photoshop Cloud Documents and never any local files. Your Files can also list documents created with compatible cloud apps; for example, if I save a document with Adobe Fresco (iPad OS) that document will show up in Your Files in Photoshop, because both Photoshop and Fresco can open those.
That might explain your Brush Engine experiments. If they were created with any Adobe app that saved them as Photoshop-compatible cloud documents, then Your Files is where they would go.
I've looked at the Files | Adobe page, but I'm not seeing any way for the Your Files screen to show local drive content. Is that how it is?
By Trevor.Dennis
Yes, and doubly so for the Files page in a web browser because that’s labeled Cloud Documents…nothing up there shows local drive content. Adobe cloud documents have their own cloud-based organization that is not tied to the local file system of any desktop or mobile device.
So in Photoshop today, the only place the Home screen shows local files is when Home is selected, not Your Files. And I think that makes Your Files a very misleading name…the name is only accurate for people who do all their work with cloud documents.
(When Creative Cloud Files were still around, they worked like Dropbox / Google Drive / OneDrive / iCloud Drive, where there was cloud storage that mirrored its hierarchy on a dedicated sync folder on each connected device. But now that Creative Cloud synced Files are discontinued, Your Files and the Creative Cloud website show only the organization of documents that are stored only in the cloud.)
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