The Cluttered Sidebar
macOS includes a smart folder feature in the Finder sidebar called “Recents.” When you click on it, it doesn’t show you a specific folder on your hard drive; instead, it dynamically searches your entire Mac and displays every single file, document, image, and download you have opened, created, or modified recently, sorted by date.
While this sounds helpful, the Recents folder is notoriously chaotic. It becomes instantly cluttered with hundreds of temporary cache files, random image assets from websites, and system logs, making it incredibly difficult to actually find the important PDF you saved an hour ago. Furthermore, having “Recents” sitting prominently in the sidebar can be a privacy concern if you are screen sharing during a meeting. Most users prefer a clean, organized folder structure and choose to hide this feature entirely.
How to Hide ‘Recents’ from the Finder Sidebar
You can easily remove this smart folder from your view via the Finder Preferences.
- Click the Finder icon (the smiling face) in your Dock to open a new Finder window and ensure Finder is the active application.
- In the top menu bar, click on Finder, then select Settings… (or Preferences on older macOS versions).
- In the window that pops up, click on the Sidebar tab at the top.
- Look down the list of items under the “Favorites” heading.
- Locate the item labelled Recents (it has a clock icon next to it).
- Uncheck the box next to Recents.
The Recents folder will instantly vanish from the left-hand sidebar of all your Finder windows. If you ever need to find a recently opened file in the future, you can simply click the Apple Logo in the top left of your screen and use the “Recent Items” menu, which is much cleaner and strictly limited to actual documents and applications.