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Right clicking Excel icon in the task bar no longer shows recent files

  • Article

If you're like me, you've got your Excel 2007 or 2010 icon pinned to the Windows 7 task bar. It's no secret that when you right click the icon you are able to left click on any of the recent or frequent files that appear. But what happens when this right click functionality stops working? What do you do when you right click the Excel icon in the task bar and don't get a list of recent files?

Fear not, for here is the answer:

1. Click START, and in the RUN command line enter the following:

%AppData%\Microsoft]Windows\Recent\AutomaticDestinations

2. Find the following entry and delete it:

9839aec31243a928.automaticDestinations-ms

3. Close the page.

No when you right click the Excel icon in the task menu you should see a list of your recent items the way you used to!

Comments

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Doesn't seem to work with Office 2013. You need to fix your typo. It's not %AppData%Microsoft]WindowsRecentAutomaticDestinations but %AppData%MicrosoftWindowsRecentAutomaticDestinations. But even when I replace the ] with it still doesn't work. Recent documents still never show up on the task bar with Office 2013, at least for me.

    • Anonymous
      September 16, 2016
      you have to replace ] to \ its work

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    September 15, 2011
    Awsome detective work. Helps a lot!

  • Anonymous
    November 21, 2011
    At first I could not find the file so desperate measures drove me to remopve all the files and tested okay after a while of trial and errors, Thanks a mil

  • Anonymous
    December 17, 2011
    Unable to fine the file you refer to in  Windows 7 Home Premium

  • Anonymous
    January 18, 2012
    Will it be the same to restore Word list rather than Excel?

  • Anonymous
    February 06, 2012
    On Win7 Premium 64-bit I found the file name would have a prefix of 75d01b5b7df0d177.

  • Anonymous
    July 19, 2012
    Thanks it works! Note that there's a typo in the link: %AppData%Microsoft]WindowsRecentAutomaticDestinations It should be: %AppData%MicrosoftWindowsRecentAutomaticDestinations

  • Anonymous
    September 17, 2012
    %AppData%MicrosoftWindowsRecentAutomaticDestinations Try this..

  • Anonymous
    November 30, 2012
    Thanks! I didn't find the specified file, so I moved all of the files out of the folder. After opening a random document in Excel, it created two new files - 6e855c85de07bc6a.automaticDestinations-ms and 1b4dd67f29cb1962.automaticDestinations-ms. Then I just moved all of the other files back into the folder except for the old versions of those two. Thanks again, I'm glad I didn't have to reinstall Excel!

  • Anonymous
    December 12, 2012
    Great it really works   Thanks a lotsssssss And yes there is an Typo error it should be %AppData%MicrosoftWindowsRecentAutomaticDestinations

  • Anonymous
    May 30, 2013
    huntermc is right... cut out all files to a new folder, open Excel and close... I got 2 new files in the folder... and copied all the rest right back, choosing to not replace the 2 new files... the actual name of the file is different for everyone(?)  and nothing in the file that I could read with notepad to identify which file is for which app... obviously there is a link somewhere. thanks!

    • Anonymous
      March 26, 2016
      It works out... thanks...

  • Anonymous
    August 02, 2013
    Great....Thanks for this resolution.....It's help me alot.....Thanks

  • Anonymous
    September 21, 2013
    this is really amazing, i did it by your help thanks a lot.

  • Anonymous
    December 12, 2013
    Great advise! It work. Only the path for the RUN command has a typo.

  • Anonymous
    February 16, 2014
    Worked for me with Excel 2010 with the typo corrected in the to-be-removed file name

  • Anonymous
    March 13, 2014
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    March 13, 2014
    As hunterm suggested, move all of the files out of the folder below into a "NEW FOLDER": %AppData%MicrosoftWindowsRecentAutomaticDestinations

    Open and then close a random document in Excel and return to the "AutomaticDestinations" folder above. The "AutomaticDestinations" folder above will now have either 1 or 2 new files. Then move all of the original files back into the "AutomaticDestinations" folder except for the old versions.

    If all else fails, pinning a document manually to the taskbar icon might "unclog" the jump list

    • Anonymous
      July 23, 2016
      Thank you so much! After weeks of trying everything else, manually pinning an excel file to the excel taskbar icon did the trick,

  • Anonymous
    April 01, 2014
    Thanks! Fixed both Excel and Word 2007 on Windows 7 Pro 64-bit for me.

  • Anonymous
    April 06, 2014
    tnx..it works

  • Anonymous
    April 11, 2014
    Sir,
    am not able to found the folder %AppData%Microsoft/Windows. a icon recent items is displaying & not able to found the folder as AutomaticDestinations. pl help me

  • Anonymous
    April 22, 2014
    This does not solve the issue for Office 2013 on Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit

  • Anonymous
    April 27, 2014
    My recent files appear in Word and other programs but not Excel 2010. In Excel 2010 all I had was a prior list of old files that would not be updated. I followed your instructions (after correcting the typo), deleted said file, and now I receive no old files when I right click on the Excel 2010 icon.
    Interestingly enough, I also tried to pin an excel file to my taskbar and it opens up in Excel 2003! Recent file history for Excel 2003 shows all of the files I have recently been working in within Excel 2010 - i.e. I have a recent file listing which opens files in 2003 but not working in 2010.
    Any thoughts?

  • Anonymous
    July 14, 2014
    you need to change your link to %AppData%MicrosoftWindowsRecentAutomaticDestinations from %AppData%Microsoft]WindowsRecentAutomaticDestinations (changed the } to an

  • Anonymous
    July 28, 2014
    There is a typo change the closing bracket to a backslash and it works. thx

  • Anonymous
    August 30, 2014
    Sadly, this did not work for me.

  • Anonymous
    September 02, 2014
    Genius! thx

  • Anonymous
    September 06, 2014
    Thanks, its working OK

  • Anonymous
    September 12, 2014
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    September 30, 2014
    Thanks..

  • Anonymous
    October 07, 2014
    There is a mistake in the link : %AppData%Microsoft]WindowsRecentAutomaticDestinations.
    Please replace with a backslash just avec Windows.
    Regards,

  • Anonymous
    October 14, 2014
    I have found that if you right click on that file and choose to restore from a previous version (as long as you choose a date before the problem started, you will get them back very quickly.

  • Anonymous
    October 22, 2014
    Thanks to all of you who corrected the typo.

  • Anonymous
    October 29, 2014
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    November 10, 2014
    Just wow. I cannot believe the hoops that Microsoft make users jump through to make the OS function at a basic level function. As a user this is completely unacceptable.

  • Anonymous
    November 28, 2014
    Works for Word, PowerPoint and Access, but not Excel 2010. Grrr. W7 Home ?? 64-bit.

  • Anonymous
    December 01, 2014
    I want to pin file excel files in start up menu which is not happening. Earlier it use to happen but now for some unknown reasons it has stopped. Windows 7 Ultimate. Help :-/

  • Anonymous
    December 05, 2014
    Thanks for the post. With the correction suggested by #dogbert#, it still works!!!

    I was stuck for 2 years with this problem, until finally I found this using a very long search phrase on Google.

    • Anonymous
      April 05, 2016
      For Word 2013 is a4a5324453625195.automaticDestinations-ms but this file delete remove also all pinned file.Thanks!

  • Anonymous
    March 26, 2016
    This is really helpful.. thanks i got resolved...

  • Anonymous
    April 02, 2016
    Followed the instructions carefully but when I right clicked the icon not only were there no recent files but the 'recent files' heading had dissapeared!

  • Anonymous
    June 12, 2016
    Thanks for your Suggestion......................................................

  • Anonymous
    June 21, 2016
    Nice Solution

  • Anonymous
    June 21, 2016
    This is really helpful.. thanks.

  • Anonymous
    September 13, 2016
    Most of the links are still incorrect when copied and pasted. The reason is the backslash character is missing from the path. In fact, it is being interpreted as an escape character by the window, so hopefully by doubling the backslashes, I'll provide the backslash chararacter with an escape backslash, then you can copy and paste.%AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\AutomaticDestinationsIf the link still doesn't show backslashes in the path, then replace "&" with backslash and all should be well.%AppData%Microsoft&Windows&Recent&AutomaticDestinations

  • Anonymous
    January 04, 2017
    i am wondows 7 professional with 2016 Excell (only on Excell it stop working)

  • Anonymous
    February 03, 2017
    This is the good URL:"%appdata%\microsoft\windows\recent\automaticdestinations"Perfecto.Borrado y a empezar la lista nueva.Gracias

  • Anonymous
    March 21, 2017
    I delete big file from %AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\AutomaticDestinations bt after that in temp folder file was not deleted, so issue is not solved

  • Anonymous
    August 17, 2017
    For 2010 OI found that a similar fix worked - delete the docs in here... %AppData%\Microsoft\Office\Recent