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From: Your Name <YourName@YourISP.com>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.system
Subject: Re: Clear Documents From RECENTS in Finder/Favorites/Sidebar
Date: Sat, 6 Jul 2024 12:05:58 +1200
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On 2024-07-05 20:36:04 +0000, Colour Sergeant Bourne said:
> On 7/4/24 5:16 PM, Your Name wrote:
>> On 2024-07-04 17:28:59 +0000, Colour Sergeant Bourne said:
>>> 
>>> I’m unable to clear 1,000+ document files from Finder/Favorites/Recents 
>>> in the Sidebar on my fully updated M3 iMac
>>> 
>>> I’ve tried Apple Icon/Recent Items/Clear Menu with no joy. Recent 
>>> folders and apps clear but not the document files.
>>> 
>>> I’ve tried Finder/Go/Recents, or just clicking Recents from the 
>>> sidebar, but don’t see any way to Clear the document files.
>>> 
>>> I can select the documents in the Recent folder and hit Move to Trash, 
>>> or drag them there, and while that clears them from the Recents folder, 
>>> it also deletes them from their original location-- and I don't want to 
>>> do that.
>>> 
>>> So....how to clear (not delete) documents from the Recents Folder?
>> 
>> The "Recents" folder is basically just a system-made "smart folder", so 
>> the files listed there are not taking up any extra space and you cannot 
>> clear them. It's another useless and buggy gimmick Apple added to 
>> overbloat MacOS.
>> 
>> The easiest option is to just ignore it and turn it off in the Finder 
>> Preferences / remove it from the Finder windows' sidebar.
>> 
>> If you really need such a feature, you would be better off making your 
>> own "smart" folder to list files opened within the last X days so that 
>> you can define the timeframe.
> 
> It's more a privacy thing-- not wanting an easily available record of 
> every file I've ever opened...

There's only two ways around that:

1.  Add your entire drive or Documents folder(s) to the
    Privacy tab in the Spotlight ... but then you can't
    use Spotlight to find them either.

2.  Less usefully, rename documents to include the . character
    at the start, then MacOS sees them as "invisible" and
    won't include them in Recents (or Spotlight searches, nor
    be easily visible in the Finder or Open / Save windows).

I'm not sure if either works for files already in the Recents "smart" 
folder, but it should stop any new files from being included there.