MacOS – How to disable the most recently used items in App Exposé on Lion

exposemacosmission-controltextedit

When using App Exposé on Lion ( Control–↓ by default), the lower part of the screen above the dock is reserved for minimized windows. A new feature of at least TextEdit in Lion is that it also shows the most recent documents as icons, which makes for an absolutely crowded area. I never use MRUs in my workflow so that's an absolute waste of space and of time.

Is it possible to disable this behavior and only show minimized windows?

Best Answer

OK, after twiddling different combinations, I found a solution that works (at least on Mac OS X 9.5 Mavericks).

1) Open the app in question (e.g. TextEdit).

2) Click Menubar / File / Open Recent / Clear Menu. Note that there is also a Menubar / Apple / Recent Items / Clear Menu. Clicking this general one doesn't help; click the app-specific one.

3) Open System Preferences / General and set Recent Items to None.

Note: While this keeps the minimized-items section of exposé clear of recent items, it also unfortunately disables access to recent items in most other places (e.g. the menubar or dock).

Boo Apple: http://www.apple.com/feedback/

screenshots

Related Question