How to delete all items from recents?

Hi,

I don't know if it's the same across all OSes, but in Catalina, yes, it will delete the actual files. To test it for yourself on whatever OS you're running, simply create a file you don't want to keep, see that it's in Recents, delete the file from Recents and empty the trash. Then you'll know for sure.

Well, it turns out that all the files in Recents which I deleted were in the bin! So they were actually files.

When you act upon the items in the Smart Folder, it acts upon the actual file. What you "see" in Recents are nothing but search results. However, they act as if they are the actual files.

As you've been told the Recents is a smart folder that displays all files that were opened, edited or created within a recent time period. And yes, any file deleted from the Recents folder will be deleted from your drive.

You can't empty the Recents but you can remove the Recents from the Finder's sidebar by unchecking this checkbox in the Finder/Sidebar preference pane:

It's also a good way of locating a file that you recently edited, read, created and didn't remember where it was saved to:

 As it always shows the files you viewed last, the Recent Files folder can be very handy if you've closed something by accident, downloaded several files, or needed to resume a task that was interrupted.

Open File Explorer on your computer. It should be an image of a folder pinned to your taskbar, but if it isn't pinned, you can open any folder to access it.

At the top-left of your File Explorer window, click "File," and then click "Change folder and search options."

. Under "Privacy" in the General tab of the pop-up window that appears, click the "Clear" button to immediately clear all your Recent Files, then click "OK."

There is no confirmation dialog box — your files should be cleared immediately.

I wish to delete all items from recents. If doing so will the actual files on my hard disc also be deleted?

Yes.

Recents is a Smart Folder. It is a search that shows all files that match the criteria set in the search folder. There are no actual files in the Smart Folder, and it really isn't a folder.

Why would you want to delete them? Maybe we can offer an alternative.