Many programs keep something of a running tab on associated files and folders. Things like recently played tracks in a music apps, recently viewed videos on a media player, and the like are often tracked for easy repeated access. For some, this is a great convenience and saves much time when trying to find commonly accessed media. Of course for others this can also become a privacy headache if you share your computer or have accessed some media which you wouldn’t want others to know about.
By default, Windows 10 has a feature called Quick Access that keeps your recently accessed files and folders in one place. In this “folder” you can view what was viewed or used most recently and is an easy way to quickly find files that you’ve been working on. For others who have privacy concerns and want to disable this feature, thankfully it is rather easy to accomplish.
1. Click the Windows button to open the Start menu and then click ‘File Explorer’.
2. Now click ‘View’ on the top and then ‘Options’ all the way to the right.
3. Under Privacy, uncheck the boxes next to ‘Show recently used files in Quick Access’ and ‘Show recently used folders in Quick Access’. Then click ‘Apply’. This will stop Quick Access from keeping track of all recently accessed files and folders.
4. You can also click the ‘Clear’ button to remove all current entries in Quick Access and clear the File Explorer history.
5. If you like to use Quick Access but only want it to temporarily show your files and folders, you can hit the ‘Clear’ button and keep the other boxes checked. Then it will continue to track recently accessed media but the list can be cleared manually.
You can think of it much like clearing your browser so keep that in mind when deciding whether to use Quick Access or not.