C# - How to add or remove items from Windows recent files

Overview

Background

Starting Windows 7, Microsoft added a capability for displaying recently used files. This usually includes documents, pictures, and movies we've recently accessed. These files can be seen in various Windows components, including:

• Recent files
• Recent items
• Start menu or application's Jump List

The management of the listed files is done by the operating system.

In this post, I will show how to programmatically add and remove items from the Recent files list using C#.

My Stack

• Visual Studio 2019 Community Edition (16.5.1)
• Console application built on .NET Framework 4.7.2 (C#) – 32/64 bit.
• Windows 10 Pro 64-bit (10.0, Build 18363) (18362.19h1_release.190318-1202)

Solution

1. I created a helper class that uses Windows Shell API SHAddToRecentDocs.
2. Imported the function using PInvoke.
3. Added 2 functions:

• AddFile -> adds the file to Recent files view.
• ClearAll -> clears all files from Recent files view.

 1public static class RecentDocsHelpers
 2{
 3  public enum ShellAddToRecentDocsFlags
 4  {
 5    Pidl = 0x001,
 6    Path = 0x002,
 7    PathW = 0x003
 8  }
 9
10  [DllImport("shell32.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Unicode)]
11  private static extern void SHAddToRecentDocs(ShellAddToRecentDocsFlags flag, string path);
12
13  public static void AddFile(string path)
14  {
15    SHAddToRecentDocs(ShellAddToRecentDocsFlags.PathW, path);
16  }
17
18  public static void ClearAll()
19  {
20    SHAddToRecentDocs(ShellAddToRecentDocsFlags.Pidl, null);
21  }
22}

Usage

 1class Program
 2{
 3  static void Main(string[] args)
 4  {
 5    RecentDocsHelpers.ClearAll();
 6
 7    // add c:\temp\sample.json to recent files.
 8    RecentDocsHelpers.AddFile(@"c:\temp\sample.json");
 9  }
10}

Limitation

1. You can not add executable files to Recent files.

Result

Useful resources

• Source code of this project on GitHub