HOW-TO: Enable and Disable the Recently Used Menu in Gnome

[audax321]

To disable the recent documents menu in Gnome:

- Open '/home/username/.recently-used' in gedit:
gedit /home/username/.recently-used

- Empty the contents of the file, save, and exit.

- Make the file read-only:
chmod 400 /home/username/.recently-used


To re-enable the recent documents menu in Gnome:

- Make the file readable and writeable by the owner:
chmod 600 /home/username/.recently-used


AN EASIER ALTERNATIVE TO THE ABOVE!!!
Use the script below by adding it to the nautilus script menu:

- Open a blank text document and copy/paste the following:

#!/bin/sh

# Enable/Disable Recent Documents Menu in Gnome

if [ ! -f "$HOME/.recently-used" ]; then
echo "" > "$HOME/.recently-used"
chmod 600 "$HOME/.recently-used"
fi

if [ -w "$HOME/.recently-used" ]; then
echo "" > "$HOME/.recently-used"
chmod 400 "$HOME/.recently-used"
if [ "$?" = "0" ]; then
zenity --title="Disabled" --info --text="The 'Recent Documents' menu item has been disabled."
else
zenity --title="Error" --error --text="There was an error disabling the 'Recent Documents' menu."
fi
elif [ -f "$HOME/.recently-used" ]; then
chmod 600 "$HOME/.recently-used"
if [ "$?" = "0" ]; then
zenity --title="Enabled" --info --text="The 'Recent Documents' menu item has been enabled."
else
zenity --title="Error" --error --text="There was an error enabling the 'Recent Documents' menu."
fi
else
zenity --title="Error" --error --text="It appears the file '$HOME/.recently-used' does not exist and could not be created."
fi


- Save the file and exit.

- Set the proper permissions:
chmod 755 /path/to/saved/file

- Copy the file to the nautilus script directory located at:
/home/username/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts

:)

[stfu]

How about in Edgy?

/home/user/.recently-used.xbel pops up and resurrects no matter what you do.

[phoqueyoo]

Yeah, this doesn't work in edgy. I REALLY want to get rid of this so if anyone has found a way, post it.

[stfu]

anyone? :)

[cariboũ]

$ rm .recently-used.xbel
$ mkdir .recently-used.xbel

this works, but you'll get gtk-warnings in console..

[dolphinsonar]

$ rm .recently-used.xbel
$ mkdir .recently-used.xbelthis works, but you'll get gtk-warnings in console..

Thanks for that, I haven't seen this solution anywhere else. This is a good way to disable the recent documents menu in edgy.

[microsafe17]

$ rm .recently-used.xbel
$ mkdir .recently-used.xbel

this works, but you'll get gtk-warnings in console..

It definitely does work, thanks for the great idea.

[dolphinsonar]

Thanks for that, I haven't seen this solution anywhere else. This is a good way to disable the recent documents menu in edgy.


Yeah, still works in Feisty. Just did a clean install, and my Recently Used Documents menu is clean as well. That function is weird. Good riddance.

[toastysquirrel]

It definitely does work, thanks for the great idea.
Question 1) Does this work in Gutsy?
Question 2) Do you still need to edit the .recently-used file?

:)

[Oleq]

It works very well, thanks! ;)

[kryth]

Doesn't seem to work in Gusty.

[jochem_]

Doesn't seem to work in Gusty.

What I did was make the file immutable

sudo chattr +i recently-used.xbel

I am using Debian, but I guess this will work for you too.

[achelis]

Last method works in Gutsy.. Thanks for that :)

Is there no way to completely remove it from the "Places"-menu? This seems more like a hack that breaks the functionality rather than disabling it..

[almalaci]

Mind the missing '.' at the beginning of the filename.
It seems to work for me too on Gutsy.
And how do you change the command to re-enable it?

[PsyWolf]

What I did was make the file immutable

sudo chattr +i .recently-used.xbel

I am using Debian, but I guess this will work for you too.

Yea this worked for me in Hardy. There should be an option to turn this off more easily though.

[johnnylavah]

What I did was make the file immutable

sudo chattr +i recently-used.xbel

I am using Debian, but I guess this will work for you too.

this worked well on hardy, thank you! do you know how to reverse the effect so recent documents is re-enabled?

[tmetzcc325]

I haven't tried this, but I think you would just need to run the same command, but with a -i instead of +i. Could be wrong, though.

[anonymous_user]

What I did was make the file immutable

sudo chattr +i recently-used.xbel

I am using Debian, but I guess this will work for you too.
Thank you =D>

[croddy]

Glad I found this thread. Great tip. I created it as a directory and it finally stopped working.

Even when I chmod'ed it 000, some surreptitious background process cheerfully removed it and recreated it for me. Creating the directory seems to break whatever brain-damaged, overly-aggressive nonsense is forcibly inserting .recently-used.xbel into our rectums.

It's a shame, too, because I'd use it... if I could stick it in ~/Private, but apparently it's not allowed to be a symlink.

[fifth_rune]

If I use the method where I remove the file and create a directory in its place, is there any way to undo that? I keep trying to get rid of the new directory but it won't let me (operation not permitted, even when I am root). Any help?

[fermulator]

Creating the bogus .recently-used.xbel directory worked for me in Jaunty.

[P3P]

From https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=305325#c13



This is already implemented in gtk.

Add "gtk-recent-files-max-age=0" to your ~/.gtkrc-2.0.

'Something to click' is just missing ;-)

See:
http://library.gnome.org/devel/gtk/2.15/GtkSettings.html#GtkSettings--gtk-recent-files-max-age

[alex_o]

sudo chattr +i recently-used.xbel

that worked a treat...

to undo:
sudo chattr -i .recently-used.xbel

just install ubuntu-tweak and go to DESKTOP>GNOME and under history uncheck Enable system-wide "Recent Documents" list

http://ubuntu-tweak.com/downloads

[Rumored]

Since deleting the whole thing wastes a lot of space in the gnome-shell, I wrote a tiny python mess to remove specific entries matching any python regex patterns:
http://pastebin.com/dakpXq0z (http://pastebin.com/KVzaT2L7)

save as ~./cleanme.py , make it executable, run as
"~./cleanme.py SomeStuffYouDontWant SomeMoreStuffToDelete morePr0n ..."

careful, doesn't backup anything, no warranty that it works, might shoot you in the face...
it should print out the elements it's deleting though, so you can always pipe it into a backup file...

Protip: add it to your crontab as an hourly job, easiest with "Scheduled Tasks" UI in Gnome (sudo aptitude install gnome-schedule)

[jmagsho]

Thanks, I had forgotten this, and the terminal commands worked like a charm in Lynx.

[dcstar]

No having .recently-used.xbel working breaks the Library (the list of VMs) of VMware Player 3.1.0.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-tweak/+bug/585268

[Ubunthree]

I have this little script which deletes a bunch of history-type things when I run it:

#!/bin/bash

rm -r /home/username/.macromedia
rm /home/username/.config/google-chrome/Default/History
rm -r /home/username/.cache/google-chrome
rm -r /home/username/.thumbnails

Does anything bad happen if I add this line:

rm /home/username/.recently-used*

And is there a way to get a script to run automatically at logoff/shutdown, the way you can at startup?

Thanks!

[solitaire]

Easier option is to point the cache & thumbnails folders to the /tmp/* folder so it's wiped at every reboot
I've got a simple script to recreate the folders at every boot.

[jocheem67]

#!/bin/bash
#
# /etc/rc.local.shutdown: Local shutdown script.
#
rm -f /home/#/.recently-used.xbel
rm -f /home/#/.recently-used.xbel.*
rm -rf /home/#/.macromedia/Flash_Player/#SharedObjects/*
rm -rf /home/#/.macromedia/Flash_Player/macromedia.com/support/flashplayer/sys/*
rm -r /home/#/.thumbnails/*

Works with Arch, I guess that Ubuntu has a similar routine?