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MacBook Pro 2018 Model
I had set the recent items to 10 in Finder's preferences but for some reason I have 1,246 going back years.
My question is:
The Recent Items preference you are setting is described in Apple Help this way:
"Recent Items you’ve used are listed in the Apple menu. Choose how many items are listed.
This setting also determines how many recent items appear in app menus, such as the File > Open Recent menu in TextEdit."
The "Recents" that has over a thousand items is a smart folder which is included with every Mac. It just keeps track of recently modified documents. You are accessing it via the sidebar and/or via the Finder Go menu.
If you want the "recent items" functionality you use the Apple menu or the "Recent Folder" item in the Finder Go menu.
The Recent Items preference you are setting is described in Apple Help this way:
"Recent Items you’ve used are listed in the Apple menu. Choose how many items are listed.
This setting also determines how many recent items appear in app menus, such as the File > Open Recent menu in TextEdit."
The "Recents" that has over a thousand items is a smart folder which is included with every Mac. It just keeps track of recently modified documents. You are accessing it via the sidebar and/or via the Finder Go menu.
If you want the "recent items" functionality you use the Apple menu or the "Recent Folder" item in the Finder Go menu.
Where/how are you accessing the "Recent Items"? Where/how are you setting this preference? I suspect you are accessing the smart folder called "Recents", which is not the same thing. (Create or change a Smart Folder on Mac). If you don't want to see that smart folder in the Finder sidebar, just uncheck it in Finder>Preferences>Sidebar. There is a "Recent Items" in the Apple Menu (which is controlled by a preference in System Preferences, General). Usually that has a size of 10. There is a "Recent Folders" in the Finder Go menu - I can't recall how/if you can adjust the size of that.
Just read your reply again and noticed There is a "Recent Items" in the Apple Menu (which is controlled by a preference in System Preferences, General). I misread this the first time around, and from the Apple menu there is indeed a recents link and this does show me only 10 items, to me it seems that the "Finder One" is slightly misleading as this shows every single file type, where as far as I can work out the "Apple" link only shows documents, applications and servers which makes sense.
Thanks for the quick reply.
I am accessing the Recents folder via the Finders Preferences and selecting Sidebar then clicking on Recents and I do appreciate that it is easy to hide the folder from the Sidebar.
Using Go from the main top menu I see exactly the same, as if I was selecting Recents from the Sidebar, in System Preferences, General/Recent Items I have selected 10 but never seen 10 recents, only 1,216 and it grows everyday!
please note I have never set up a Smart Folder
Recent Items Finder
