How to Stop Showing Recent Documents in Excel 2010

The list of recent documents in Microsoft Excel 2010 is a helpful way to access files that you have recently been working on.

But if you work on a shared computer, or if someone else is using your personal computer, then you may not want someone else to be able to see the names of the files that you have been working on, or have easy access to them from within Excel.

Fortunately, you can remove the list of recent documents in Microsoft Excel 2010 to prevent your files from being accessed in this manner. Note, however, that you will then need to remember the actual location of your files on your computer.

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Remove List of Recent Documents in Microsoft Excel 2010

Note that these documents are still on your computer, and can be found by anyone who has the ability to search for them.

However, removing them from the list of recent documents will not trigger curiosity in anyone that is also using Excel, and they would specifically need to be searching for documents on your computer to find and open them.

If you are worried about someone finding a spreadsheet on your computer, you can always learn how to protect a worksheet in Excel 2010. But you can follow the steps below to learn how to remove the list of recent documents in excel 2010.

Step 1: Launch Microsoft Excel 2010.

Step 2: Click the File tab at the top-left corner of the window.

click the file tab

Step 3: Click Options at the bottom of the column on the left side of the window.

click options at the bottom of the left column

Step 4: Click Advanced in the column at the left side of the Excel Options window.

click advanced in the left column

Step 5: Scroll to the Display section of the window, then change the value in the field to the right of Show this number of Recent Documents to 0.

how to clear the list of recent documents in excel 2010

Step 6: Click the OK button at the bottom of the window.

Now that you know how to stop showing recent documents in Excel 2010, you can reduce the number of items that you see at once while browsing in the backstage area.

You can also clear your list of recent documents in Microsoft Word 2010, too, by following a similar process. Click here to learn how to stop showing recent documents in Word 2010.

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