This morning I had a user having issues with there recent documents not showing in Start Menu. I did some digging around and it seems the recent documents creates a cache storage location within “AutomaticDestinations” folder. Believe it or not, these files can be corrupted at times.
To resolve and fix the issue, follow these steps:
1) Browse to the location: %AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\AutomaticDestinations
Note: the folder ‘AutomaticDestinations’ is hidden, so coping and pasting it into your search bar should take you there.
2) Delete all the files whose size is 1MB or more. [I didn’t risk it, so I deleted everything inside the folder]
Note: If you cannot find any file sized 1MB or more then delete all the files. This will eventually remove the Jump Lists’ recent items for all the applications. The recent items on the Jump Lists will be re-added as the program is been used. If you delete all the files then ensure that the applications are pinned again to the task-bar.
3) I then rebooted the machine and test one of the Office application. Once I opened up a document and closed it the recent list started to work.