How To Clear Jump Lists In Windows 10

Jump Lists were first introduced with Windows 7. For those who don’t know, Jump Lists are nothing but recently opened files, folders, programs, and websites.

Windows 10, like its predecessors, automatically saves a history of all opened files, folders, programs, and websites, and displays these recently opened files, folders, programs, and URLs in taskbar and Start menu.

One can view just list of a program by right-clicking on its taskbar button. For instance, if you right-click on the Office Word icon, you can view all recently opened documents. Likewise, if you click or tap the small right arrow next to a program’s icon in the Start menu, jump list is displayed.

In short, Jump Lists feature helps you quickly access recently opened items. On top that, you can pin your favorite item to the jump list.

While there is a similar feature called Quick Access in Windows 10, Quick Access displays only recently opened files and frequently opened folders. Moreover, Quick Access is part of File Explorer and can’t be accessed from taskbar.

If you use a shared computer, you might want to clear this jump lists history periodically. In Windows 8.1 and Windows 7, we could clear jump lists history under Taskbar and Start menu Properties. But in Windows 10, the option to clear jump lists history has been moved to the new Settings app.

Delete Jump Lists history in Windows 10

Here is how to clear history of jump lists in Windows 10.

Step 1: Right-click on the empty area of the desktop, and then click Personalize option to open Personalization section of Settings app.

Step 2: Click Start.

Step 3: Turn off the option labelled Show recently opened items in Jump Lists on Start or the taskbar. Turning off the Jump List feature will also automatically clear its history.

Step 4: Finally, turn on Show recently opened items in Jump Lists on Start or the taskbar to continue using the Jump List feature. You may now right-click on a program’s icon in the taskbar to confirm cleared jump list history.

Tip: There is a program called JumpListsView from NirSoft to view all information stored by jump lists feature in Windows. The program is portable, which means that you can run the program without installing it.