Windows 10 makes it very easy for you to access your frequently accessed files. Your recently accessed files are displayed in the File explorer as well as in the Start menu. If you have accessed some of your sensitive or private files in the File Explorer before then they will be stored in the File Explorer history so that you can access them easily later on. But this is not what you want as just about anyone would be able to see which files you have opened earlier. To avoid such privacy related problems, you should clear the File Explorer history in Windows 10 from time to time. Here is how:
- Open File Explorer from its taskbar shortcut or you can just open any folder.
- Click/touch on the small downward arrow (∨) near the top-right corner to expand the ribbon bar.
- When the ribbon is unfolded, click/touch on the Options button displayed near the end of the ribbon bar.
- This will open the Folder Options window in which you have to click/touch the Clear button shown next to Clear File explorer history.
- All of your recent files history related to File Explorer shall be cleared instantly.
While you can clear the File Explorer recent files history through this method, the MRU items history for all the other apps in Windows 10 has to be cleared individually. For example, this method does not clear the VLC media player files history and it has to be cleared manually. You can also use a junk file cleaner app like CCleaner or Clean Master to get rid of these recently used file histories.