Change "Recent Places" to more than 5 items?

DavidM3, any luck?

Wondered if you ever found a solution to this, or if anyone can direct me to a thread revolving around this conversation in particular?

I've been searching for an answer to this functionality for months with no avail, and with not being able to find anyone even asking the same questions as me. I like that you are able to expand the recent places drop down with the aforementioned Terminal command, but that's only in the Save As / Open dialogs. I'm interested in that same functionality for a basic Finder window (not within an application). What's interesting is that in the image below, you can see that Apple has included a feature similar to what we want, but only contains the breadcrumb trail to what folder we are in currently. As you know, that is what composes the top half of any drop down menu in Save As / Open dialog windows. But the bottom half is recent folder locations, including network (server) AND local folders. This is crucial and would be a super speedy improvement to my workflow. I know people say to use Smart Folders/ Smart Searches but that doesn't include network locations—only local.

If anyone has any knowledge of how to maybe get a Finder hack or 3rd party app to create this functionality, I would be eternally grateful! Maybe this is a feature I could request of the noble people behind the app XtraFinder (a great little app for those looking for expanded Finder functionality).

The recent places referred to is located on the folder selector in the Save/Save As... dialog.

There is a system setting for this in GlobalPreferences called NSNavRecentPlaces. You can see this from the Terminal as:

defaults find recentplaces

In Leopard and Snow Leopard, one could issue the following command to increase the recent places array -- and it would take effect immediately.

defaults write .GlobalPreferences NSNavRecentPlacesLimit -int 10

When I ran this on my 10.8.4 system, the command returned without error. Xcode showed the resource and value written in the .GlobalPreferences file, as did the above defaults find command. However, even after a reboot, there was no change. Still stuck at five recent places entries. The other notable was that the recent places locations were not changing after several Save/Save As... cycles --- deliberately to new destinations.

So, unless anyone else has additional tweaks, you may have to settle for five entries, and hopefully for you, they do change.

Here is the reference article.

This is really helpful. I was hoping to have a recent folders smart folder or shortcut in either the dock or the Finder sidebar to quickly access all of the recent network folders I've been saving to. Anyone been able to do this?

Thanks.

Fnye, that won't do the trick for me because it will open all of the folders on the network drive that anyone has opened within X days, which is such a long list, it's not useful for me. I'm really trying to replicate the folders in the "Favorite Places" drop-down in the OS X save as dialog boxes.

Not a direct answer to your question, but try clicking the arrow to the other position - down or up, which should allow you to see your entire Finder.

System Preferences > General > Recent items.

Glad it is working for you.

I tried this too on Mavericks and it worked for me! Thanks, VikingOSX! (sorry for the late post, but I just came across this thread) --F.

Create a new smart folder (save it anywhere convenient) by selecting "This Mac", "Kind is Folder", and "Last opened date is within X days" --F.

Awesome – the terminal command worked here in 10.9.4 – thanks!

The terminal command (defaults write .GlobalPreferences NSNavRecentPlacesLimit -int 10) works in Yosemite, took effect after a reboot.

I am running 10.10.5