Understanding the Recent folder in Mac's Finder

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I often get asked about the Recent Folder that appears in Finder on the Mac. It can be confusing that files seem to appear twice in Finder - in both the location in which you stored them, and also in Recent.

Here's an explanation of Recent and why it is a great place to look when you are trying to find a lost file, clean up duplicate files or do a cleanup of storage.

Your Recent folder is a ‘virtual’ folder only, not a real storage location. It shows the results of a search across all folders, and typically shows your files in the order of most recently opened to least recently opened.
 
Recent used to be called All Files in previous versions of the Mac operating system.
 
A file will appear in its ‘real’ stored location as well as in Recent. The item you see in Recent is not a copy of the file. As already mentioned, Recent is not actually a storage folder.

If you delete a file from the Recent list, you are actually deleting it from its stored location.

If you delete it from its stored location, it will disappear from Recent.

If you create a file right now in one of your folders, it will appear in Recent as well.

If you open a file, it will jump to the top of the Recent list*.
 
(*This assumes that you have not changed the default sort order for Recent, which shows files in order of most recently opened.)

You can also sort the content that you see in Recent in different ways.

In fact, you can sort according to any of the column headings that you see. For example,

• to sort by file name (so that you see files of the same/similar name grouped together, in alphabetical order), click on the Name column heading.
• to sort by date opened, click on the Date Opened column heading
• to sort by size - so that you can see the biggest files at the top - click on the Size column heading.

If any these columns are not currently showing in your view of Recent, they can easily be added. Simply right-click on the column heading area, and tick or untick the columns you wish to see/hide. I always add the Date Modified and Size columns to my Finder List views.

These different ways of sorting files and viewing files provides great assistance when you are doing a cleanup of your Mac's storage. If you find duplicates, simply identify which are the 'excess' versions and delete them - especially if you have turned on the 'Path Bar' at the bottom of the screen, so that you can see a file's location when you click on it in Finder.

We cover all this and more as part of our Getting to Know Your Mac series of classes and videos, and in our Introduction to the Mac series of guides.

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