How to remove Apple Menu > Recent Items completely? — Servers entry stuck

Okay, for anyone who’s interested, here is the solution. Use at your own risk.

1. Copy the file com.apple.LSSharedFileList.RecentServers.sfl2 from [your-username] > Library > Application Support > com.apple.sharedfilelist to the Desktop
2. Open Terminal, type use plutil -convert xml1 , and drag the copied file from the Desktop to the Terminal window
3. Press the Return key. This will overwrite the file on the Desktop with an XML version of the file
4. Open the XML file in Text Edit
5. Now find <string>com.apple.LSSharedFileList.MaxAmount</string><integer>10</integer> and change the integer value 10 to 0
6. Save the file
7. In Terminal, type plutil -convert binary1 , and drag the XML file from the Desktop to the Terminal window
8. Press the Return key. This will convert the file on the Desktop back to binary
9. Move the file back to the folder [your-username] > Library > Application Support > com.apple.sharedfilelist
10. When prompted, overwrite the existing file
11. Log out and log in again, enjoy the new clutter-free experience

That must be a bug. There are three files in users > username > Library > com.apple.sharedfilelist that seem to be relevant, namely

• com.apple.LSSharedFileList.RecentDocuments.sfl2
• com.apple.LSSharedFileList.RecentApplications.sfl2
• com.apple.LSSharedFileList.RecentServers.sfl2

When you follow the hints given at https://scriptingosx.com/2016/11/editing-property-lists/, and use plutil to read the contents of these files, you will see that the value of com.apple.LSSharedFileList.MaxAmount in the first two files is set to zero, while the respective value in the third one remains 10, when you set Last Documents, Apps, Servers in System Settings to 0.

I haven’t found a way to change this.