Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

You are here: MacNN Forums > Software - Troubleshooting and Discussion > macOS > Making "Recent Items" more selective?

Making "Recent Items" more selective?
Thread Tools
ringo
Professional Poster
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: PA
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Dec 3, 2004, 07:23 PM
 
Does anyone know a way to configure the Recent Items menu to always exclude certain documents or applications?

thx. -ringo
     
ManOfSteal
Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Outfield - #24
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Dec 3, 2004, 07:45 PM
 
Uh oh, what are you trying to hide?

     
darkcore
Dedicated MacNNer
Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: Red Bluff, CA
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Dec 3, 2004, 07:53 PM
 
teh pr0ns
     
ringo  (op)
Professional Poster
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: PA
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Dec 3, 2004, 08:03 PM
 


So, seriously, is there a way to do this?

Maybe a script I could run in the background that would make selective edits to wherever OSX stashes away the recent item list? Have it fire every hour or so and remove references to certain apps, or files with certain extensions?

How does OS X keep track of what you've opened recently?
     
darkcore
Dedicated MacNNer
Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: Red Bluff, CA
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Dec 3, 2004, 08:20 PM
 
they're stored in a .plist in: ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.recentitems.plist

not sure how easy that would be to parse...
     
theory
Dedicated MacNNer
Join Date: May 2002
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Dec 3, 2004, 08:21 PM
 
use default find / delete on the com.apple.recentitems.plist domain and put it in a cron job, 2 ezy
     
ringo  (op)
Professional Poster
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: PA
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Dec 3, 2004, 08:25 PM
 
OK, so I tried working with ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.recentitems.plist.

It looks like both apps and docs have a small section, each starts with about 9 lines that aren't human-readable under the key doc-aliases and app-aliases, beneath each is a section that is human-readable. keys: apps and docs.

I tried editing out sets of aliases and associated documents, but the changes don't show in the interface. Any ideas about what needs to happen to make my changes "take" after the edit?
     
   
Thread Tools
 
Forum Links
Forum Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Top
Privacy Policy
All times are GMT -4. The time now is 06:06 PM.
All contents of these forums © 1995-2017 MacNN. All rights reserved.
Branding + Design: www.gesamtbild.com
vBulletin v.3.8.8 © 2000-2017, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.,