Let’s take a look. You can find the list of recently opened workbooks on the File tab, under Recent. Here you’ll see a list of workbooks, with the most recently opened workbooks at the top. If there are files you use frequently, or if you’re working on a project and want to make sure you have quick access to specific files during the project, you can “pin” any file that appears in the list. When you pin a file, it stays at the top of the list until you unpin it again. There is a checkbox at the bottom of the recent files list that says “Quickly access this number of recent workbooks”. If you check this box, and enter a number, you’ll see that number of recent files appear in the left column of the File tab. This number represents the files at the top of the list, and includes pinned files. You can adjust this value to whatever makes sense for you. Clear the checkbox to remove the files from the left column. To the right of the Recent Workbooks list is the Recent Places list. This list tracks your most recently used folders. Like the recent workbooks list, you can pin certain folders, so that they always appear at the top of this list. You can remove both workbooks and folders from lists by right clicking, and selecting “Remove from list”. If you’d like to clean up the list, you can clear all recent workbooks, except pinned workbooks, by right-clicking and selecting “Clear unpinned workbooks”.
Dave Bruns
Hi - I’m Dave Bruns, and I run Exceljet with my wife, Lisa. Our goal is to help you work faster in Excel. We create short videos, and clear examples of formulas, functions, pivot tables, conditional formatting, and charts.