finder does not update the recent files

Hi Laufie.

Thank you for posting in Apple Support Communities. Relaunching Finder could help with what you're experiencing. By doing so, we're looking to refresh Finder. Here's how:

1. Click on the Apple Systems () icon within the Menu Bar.
2. Select Force Quit.
3. Click on Finder > Relaunch.

More information about using the Force Quit feature can be found here: How to force an app to quit on your Mac - Apple Support

Let us know if that helps.

Cheers!

Thank you for keeping us posted, Laufie. 

With the issue continuing after relaunching Finder, the next step would be to rebuild the Spotlight index. The steps to rebuild the Spotlight index are listed below, you can also find those steps in the following article. 

Rebuild the Spotlight index on your Mac

"Choose Apple menu  > System Preferences, then click Spotlight.Click the Privacy tab.Drag the disk or folder that you want to index again to the list of locations that Spotlight is prevented from searching. Or click the add button (+) and select the disk or folder to add.You can add an item to the Privacy tab only if you have ownership permissions for that item. To learn about permissions, choose Help from the Finder menu bar, then search for “permissions.”From the same list of locations, select the disk or folder that you just added. Then click the remove button (–) to remove it from the list.Quit System Preferences. Spotlight will reindex the contents of the disk or folder. This can take some time, depending on the amount of information being indexed."

If you continue to have issues after rebuilding the Spotlight index, try booting your Mac in to safe mode to see if the issue persists and notate the results. The steps for booting into safe mode can be found in the below article. If the issue continues in safe mode, you would want to reach out to Apple next. You can find their contact details via the Get Support website.

How to use safe mode on your Mac

Take care!