How To View Specific Type Of Files In The Recent Files Section Of Windows 11 File Explorer Home

The Recent files section in the Windows 11 File Explorer Home shows all recently saved files and accessed files, including PDFs, images, Word documents, Excel sheets, text files, and videos. In short, the Recent files section lists all types of files.

Because the Recent files section shows all types of files, finding a specific type of file might take some time, especially when you have tens of files in the Recent section. To solve this problem, Windows 11 File Explorer offers an option to view only a specific file type in the Recent files section. For instance, you can configure it so that only Word documents or images appear in the Recent files list.

This guide shows you how to make the Windows 11 File Explorer Home display only a specific type of file in the Recent section.

Make Windows 11 File Explorer Home show a specific type of file in the Recent files section

NOTE: This applies only to File Explorer Home and does not work for other locations in the File Explorer.

Step 1: Open File Explorer Home. As you know, by default, File Explorer automatically opens to Home. If you have changed it, you may click the Home icon in the File Explorer navigation pane to switch from your current location to Home.

Step 2: With default settings, the Recent section shows all recent files.

Step 3: To force the Recent files section show a specific type of file by filtering out all other types of files, click the Filter icon in the File Explorer toolbar (refer to the picture below) and then select the file type that you wish to see. The filter currently offers filters for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, images, PDFs, and videos.

For instance, if you wish to see only images in the Recent files section, excluding other files types, click the Filter icon, then click Images. The Recent section now shows only images.

Please note that once you switch to other folders or close the window, the filter will be automatically reset to show all types of files in the Recent files section. That is, when you open the File Explorer Home again, the Recent files section displays all types of files.

Our guide on how to view all recent files in Windows 11 might also interest you.