How to delete QuickTime recents

Question

Level 1

4 points

How to delete QuickTime recents

How do you delete recents in quicktime in Tahoe?

1) With QuickTime open, you can go to File > Open Recent, but the Clear Menu button is greyed out.

2) You can open a new file from the internet as was suggested in another question, then the Clear Menu button comes back, and you can press it.. however it does Not clear recents. To prove this, Open the Quicktime application and in the file browser that comes up, click Recents - all of the files that were in your "history" are still there, the list was not deleted.

3) I saw some information on the internet stating that the history list is in Library > Application Support or Library > Preferences - perhaps it used to, but no longer does in Tahoe - where is it?

4) How can I delete QT history actually

5) How can I permanently turn off saving history?

Note, this shouldn't be hard to do..

Posted on Nov 17, 2025 8:37 AM

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Answer 1

Nov 17, 2025 11:01 AM in response to Aelphin

I'm sorry, I cannot reproduce your issue. I can use Apple Menu > QuickTime Player > File > Open Recent, and "Clear Menu" is selectable.

and when I click "Clear Menu", the previous files are gone.

so I need to ask. are you using any apps that claim to "clean up" or "speed up" or otherwise "optimize" your Mac? and / or any antivirus apps? apps such as those are neither needed nor recommended on your Mac. they are known to cause major issues within macOS, while providing ZERO benefit or protection. if you have any, you would do well to uninstall them.

if you have no such apps, i'm thinking you should download and run the free version of EtreCheck so we can see if you have some software installed that is causing your issue. make sure you give "full disk access" to etrecheck. Learn how to use it by reading Using EtreCheck. if you need help interpreting the report, you can see how to post the report here by reading How to use the Add Text Feature When Posting Large Amounts of Text, i.e. an Etrecheck Report. and it automatically obscures sensitive things (like serial numbers) so you don't have to worry about sharing the report here.

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