Is "Recent Documents" no longer provided in Windows 10 Start Menu?

I believe the "new thinking" at Microsoft during the redesign of the Start Menu was that if you want to access "files", then open File Explorer to access them, instead of the Start Menu.

To that end, when you open Explorer, it will default to "Quick Access" which includes the list of Recent Files. E.g.:

Method 1: Use the Run box

• Open the Run box with the keyboard shortcut Winkey+R
• Enter shell:recent

The folder listing all your recent items will open. The list can be quite long and may contain items that are not so recent. You may even want to delete some.

Note that the contents of the Recent Items folder is different from the contents of the File Explorer entry "Recent Places", which contains folders that have been visited rather than files. They often have quite different contents.

---

Method 2: Make a desktop shortcut to the folder “Recent Items”

If you like to look at the contents of Recent Items on a frequent basis, you may want to create a shortcut on the desktop.

• Right-click the desktop
• In the context menu, choose New
• Select Shortcut

• In the box “Type the location of the item”, enter %AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\

• Click Next

• Name the shortcut “Recent items” or name of your choice
• Click Finish

You can also pin this shortcut to the task bar or place in some other convenient location.

---

Method 3: Add “Recent Items” to the Quick Access Menu

The Quick Access Menu (also called Power User’s Menu) is another possible place to add an entry for Recent Items. This is the menu opened by the keyboard shortcut Winkey+X Use the path:

%AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\

Contrary to some articles on the Internet, you cannot simply add shortcuts to the folder that is used by the Quick Access Menu. For security reasons, Windows will not allow additions unless the shortcuts contain certain code. The utility Win+X Menu Editor takes care of that.

Reference: Three Ways to Easily Access Your Most Recent Documents and Files in Windows 8.x (the original article was for Windows 8.1. But this works on Windows 10 at the time of writing)

Open the file explorer:

• select view tab
• select options on the far right: this opens a dialogue
  • under privacy you can select to show the recent folders or files.