Recent Items files can't be opened from any program.

Hello and welcome to Apple Support Communities, Brad!

I understand you're not able to open files on your Mac. I'd be happy to provide information to help you accomplish this.

First, try restarting your Mac and then test to see if you can open these files. If not, try opening them while in safe mode:

Use safe mode to isolate issues with your Mac

Let us know the results.

Have a great day!

I have the same problem and tried the safe mode solution to no avail. I received a Word doc via email and saved it to my hard after re-naming it. I saved the changes I made before restarting my computer this morning. When I found the doc in my Document folder and clicked on it, it told me I don't have permission to open it. Now it has disappeared completely from either the Documents or Downloads folders, but it still appears under the Apple menu under Recent Items. Selecting it from that menu, however, is unavailing. Nothing happens at all.

I 'upgraded' to Catalina last week. This has never happened before and I've been using Macs since 1984.

I've had this problem since I got my new MBP 13" last week. If I'm in Preview (for example) and go to the Apple menu and then Recent Items, and I pick a Scrivener project (for example), I get the error message. This is just the OS being dumb because of poor coding. The problem and solution are clear: Whatever Recent Item I pick under the Apple menu should open, period.