Macos – How to remove a single item from the “Open Recent” menu on Mac OS X

macos

Most document-based Mac OS X applications have a File —> Open Recent… menu item. This is a list of recent files you've opened with the program. Removing all items is easy; simply select Clear Menu.

However, sometimes you might just want to remove a single item or two rather than everything, such as a file that no longer exists, or one you never want to see again. How do you remove a single item from the Open Recent list, without removing anything else?

Open Recent... example

Best Answer

In most applications, application-specific recent documents are in a file named:

~/Library/Preferences/com.company.application.LSSharedFileList.plist

To list all these files in Terminal, enter the following:

ls -Ad Library/Preferences/* | grep LSSharedFileList

On Mac OS X 10.6, these files are (usually) in a binary format.

Use Property List Editor (Apple Developer Tools / Xcode 3) or Xcode 4 to view and edit them.

They are re-read when the application launches, not while it's running. You need to close the application while editing this file.

I guess I was bored...

#!/usr/bin/env bash

mode=$2
if [ -z "$mode" ] ; then
    echo "Usage:"
    echo "$0 <filename> ls       - list recent file entries in specified *.LSSharedFileList.plist"
    echo "$0 <filename> rm <idx> - remove recent file entry with given index from specified plist"
    exit 1
fi

if [ "$mode" != "ls" ] && [ "$mode" != "rm" ] ; then
    echo "second argument must be one of [ls, rm]"
    exit 1
fi

file=$1
if [ -z $file ] ; then
    echo "Need argument (recent items plist file)!"
    exit 1
fi
if [ ! -f $file ] ; then
    echo "File $file does not exist!"
    exit 1
fi

if [ "$mode" = "ls" ] ; then
    i=0
    cont=1
    while [ $cont ] ; do
        recentfilename=$( /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Print RecentDocuments:CustomListItems:$i:Name" $file 2>/dev/null )
        if [ "$?" -ne "0" ] ; then
            cont=
        else
            echo "$i - $recentfilename"
            i=$(( $i + 1 ))
        fi
    done
fi

if [ "$mode" = "rm" ] ; then
    i=$3
    if [[ $i =~ ^-?[0-9]+$ ]] ; then
        # argument is integer
        $( /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Delete RecentDocuments:CustomListItems:$i" $file )
    else
        echo "Expected integer, got $i as third argument"
        exit 1
    fi
fi

Usage:

$ ./editrecent.sh 
Usage:
./editrecent.sh <filename> ls       - list recent file entries in specified *.LSSharedFileList.plist
./editrecent.sh <filename> rm <idx> - remove recent file entry with given index from specified plist


$ ./editrecent.sh Library/Preferences/com.macromates.textmate.LSSharedFileList.plist ls
0 - rcd
1 - artifactory.sh
2 - py.py
3 - iTunes Music Library.xml
4 - iTunes Library.xml
5 - gradle-proxy-support.diff
6 - DefaultGradlePropertiesLoader.java
7 - DefaultGradlePropertiesLoader-proxy.java
8 - gradle-proxy-support.patch
9 - DefaultKeyBinding.dict
10 - DefaultKeyBindings.dict

$ ./editrecent.sh Library/Preferences/com.macromates.textmate.LSSharedFileList.plist rm 3

$ ./editrecent.sh Library/Preferences/com.macromates.textmate.LSSharedFileList.plist ls
0 - rcd
1 - artifactory.sh
2 - py.py
3 - iTunes Library.xml
4 - gradle-proxy-support.diff
5 - DefaultGradlePropertiesLoader.java
6 - DefaultGradlePropertiesLoader-proxy.java
7 - gradle-proxy-support.patch
8 - DefaultKeyBinding.dict
9 - DefaultKeyBindings.dict
Related Question