Can I delete a file from being shown in the 'recents' area of the Files iOS app?

Question

I am trying to remove some files out of the 'recents' view of the files iOS app without actually deleting the file.

My 'recents' list is currently too long, for this view to be of any help for me at this point. Ideally, I can curate individual items that aren't relevant and keep the rest of the list, but if needed - can I just purge all recents and start cleanly?

Answer 1

• No - you can't edit or suppress one item - just open new files and the one that's current will be less recent.
• Yes - You can wipe all the items and start fresh.

Open the Files app. Go to Browse tab. You'll get a list of the Locations you've authorized Files to access: iCloud, Google, etc. Your Recents tab displays recently viewed files from any authorized drive - not just iCloud.

Tap the three dots "..." in the upper right hand corner of the screen and select "Edit" from the popup menu that will appear. To clear the Recents view for any drive turn access off by tapping the Green Button. This clears the Recents view. You can then turn access back on by tapping the button again. A little kluggy but it works.

Answer 2

No. "Recents" is just all your files sorted by most recently used. So if you have a file in Files.app, it will appear there.

Answer 3

Natively: iPad OS and iOS does not allow you to remove/hide files from the “Recents” section in the native file app.

1st work around (any file)

For when you are trying to prevent files from showing up in the recents section.

1. Create a folder in the “On my [device here]“ tab
2. Move all the files that you want to remove from “Recents” into the folder you’ve created.
3. Long press the folder, and select compress.

This will create a duplicate of the original folder with all the files that you’ve placed inside as a .zip file.

4. Delete the original folder that was not compressed

This will not immediately delete the folder and will instead be moved into “Recently Deleted” in case you want to recover your file. (This also removes the folder and its contents from the recents section, so technically you could view the files from “recently deleted” without anything appearing into Recents even after you restore it after viewing the contents).

5. Tap on the compressed file and it will export a duplicate of the original compressed folder. None of the files inside the exported folder will be listed in the “Recents” section until viewed again.
6. After viewing the contents, assuming no files were added or modified (if files were added, start from step 1), delete the uncompressed folder, and uncompress the zip file. Rinse and repeat as needed.

2nd work around (images, GIF’s, videos only):

This work around is for images, GIF’s, and videos specifically.

1. Separate all the files into a folder as you would in work around 1.
2. Select all the sorted images
3. Tap “share” and press “Save Image(s)”
4. Delete the folder containing all the images/videos

Again this will not immediately delete the files/folder and you can recover them if you so please.

5. Open the native Photos app
6. Select all the images that you would like to hide
7. Press Share, and tap the “Hide” option
8. Go into the “Albums” section and go into the “Hidden” album.

This will remove all the images from being viewable in the photos app or any other application. Unless unhidden, all images will be restricted to just the “Hidden” album.

Answer 4

If all those files you don’t want to appear in your Recents are located in the same folder(s) and are the only contents there, you can exclude them from appearing by configuring Spotlight:

• System Preferences > Siri & Spotlight > Privacy

This will also remove them from other search results, however.

Answer 5

You can't exactly remove files from recents. But there is a workaround that can help if you have some folders which you can rename.

Just rename the folder to end with .noindex (e.g., MyPrivateFolder.noindex).

This will prevent the folder and its contents from appearing in Spotlight search or the Recents tab.

Answer 6

Yes !this works for me.... Start composing a new email. Doesn’t matter to whom. In the body of the email click to display a menu bar. Select “insert photo” and/or “insert file” and the recents list will display. Long press any file to display actions menu, and select delete. Gone!

Answer 7

After several attempts, it seems I finally could solve this big challenge and I decided share here to help the several people with same issue. Here are the steps:

1. Disable the automatic date and hour and change them manually to some date you wanna record the file last seem date

2. After date be changed, click on the file and hold to open clicking in “overview” and then close

3. Change back the date manually again and the files will no longer appear in “recent seen”, depending the date you chose to overview them, of course

If set the automatic date and hour, it won’t work. Need to keep with the manual date and hour

Let me know if worked. It worked here pretty well

Answer 8

AFAIK this is still not possible. To remove the recent files just use the menu item at the end of the list.