How to Clear Recent Documents in Excel (3 Effective Ways)

Method 1 – Using Excel Options Feature to Clear Recent Documents

Steps:

• Go to the File tab.

• Click on Options.

• In the Excel Options window, select Advanced, go to the Display.
• Set ‘Show this Number of Recent Workbooks’ to 0 (zero).
• Click OK.

The recent documents will be removed from the history.

Method 2 – Clear Unpinned Workbooks Applying ‘Remove from List’

Steps:

• Go to the File menu, Recent
• Right-click on any of the recent documents that you want to remove and select Remove from List.
• This command will remove that recent document.

• To clear all the recent documents, go to More Workbooks. This option is at the right bottom corner of the Recent tab.

• In the Workbooks tab, right-click on any of the recent documents and select Clear unpinned items.

• Click Yes in the pop-up window.

• All recent documents will be removed from the history.

Read More: How to Clear Excel Temp Files

Method 3 – Implementing VBA to Clear Recent Documents

Steps:

• Go to the Developer tab, select Visual Basic.

• The VBA editor will appear. Select Insert >> Module to open a VBA Module.

• Enter the following code in the VBA Module.

Sub ClearRecentDocuments()
On Error Resume Next
Do Until Err.Number <> 0
Application.RecentFiles.Item(1).Delete
Loop
End Sub

The code uses a Do Loop statement to remove all the recent documents from the history.

• Go back to your sheet and run the Macro named ClearRecentDocuments.

• Go to the File tab to check if all the recent documents are removed from the history.

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• How to Clear Multiple Cells in Excel
• How to Clear Cells with Certain Value in Excel
• How to Clear Contents in Excel Without Deleting Formatting
• How to Clear Contents in Excel Without Deleting Formulas

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