Note: this will only work for Windows 10 Pro - the registry editor is not built into Home edition. While occasional crashes may not be too much of an issue for you, but if Windows Explorer keeps crashing too often, it’s an issue that requires a serious look into. While it’s a quite handy but there are times when they lead to a pretty nasty privacy breach, for example, you visited a personal folder. Windows Explorer is one of the essential elements of your system, and if Windows Explorer keeps crashing, you’ll have difficulties accessing files and folders on your computer. Method 3: Disable the Recent Items and Frquent Folders list using the Registry Editor When you open Quick Access in Windows 10 File Explorer, you may notice that you can see all of your recently visited files and folders in a list.

Scroll to the bottom of the list of settings and turn ‘Show recently opened items in Jump Lists on Start or the taskbar’ to ‘Off’.

the Advanced folder, you should see a list of entries on the left side of the window.

Click on the Windows Start button then open ‘Settings’ (the cog icon) The Quick access section is found when you open the File Explorer.

Note: It will only disable the ‘Recent files’ list - NOT ‘Frequent folders’. This is the process Windows 10 Home users will need to use.

Now select all and delete all items - remember to empty the Recycling Bin if you don’t want this history to be easily restored.

Copy in the following path and click ‘OK’.

Press the Windows button + R on your keyboard - this will open the Run window.

Method 1: Manually clear the Recent Items and Frequent Folders history There are two options available for manging these lists - manually clearing the history (leaving the history still working), completely disabling the feature, and if you have Windows 10 Pro you can completely disable it using the registry editor. These are listed under ‘Quick Access’ in File Explorer– which happens to be the default folder when you open the File Explorer, as well listing the ‘Frequent Folders’ in the navigation pane.

When you open files or folders Windows 10 keeps a history so it can list your ‘Recent Items’ (recently opened files) and ‘Frequent Folders’ (folders you use a lot).

Windows explorer frequent list