Relation between Recent sub-menu in the Windows Start menu and the Recent directory?

So how are the Recent sub-menu in the Windows Start menu and the above Recent directory related?

They are directly related. The Recent Items interface you see on your Start Menu displays the most recently accessed files, and the shortcuts that you see actually reside within the %AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent folder. That same folder provides a much more comprehensive list of recently used files and folders than the Recent Items will typically display. The bottom line is that the Recent folder is the source for the Recent Items shortcuts you see on your Start Menu. If you delete an item in one, it will disappear from the other, too.

Is it possible to customize the number of Recent items automatically kept in both the Recent sub-menu and in the Recent directory?

You can increase the number of Recent Items shown on the Start Menu through a registry modification:

Open the Start Menu, then type regedit in the search line and press Enter.

If prompted by UAC, then click on Yes.

In the Registry Editor, navigate to the following location:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

In the right pane of Explorer, right click on a empty space, click on New and DWORD (32-bit), type MaxRecentDocs, and press Enter.

In the right pane, double click on MaxRecentDocs.

Select (dot) Decimal, type in the maximum number of recent items you want to display, and click on OK.

Close the Registry Editor

Reboot the computer to apply the changes.

(Source)

Taking it a step further, it appears that the same registry setting affects the maximum number of items retained within the %AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent folder, also. Following a similar conversation on the Microsoft forums, one person said the following:

And this works. I set the registry key to 250 and my formerly-stuck-at-150-items Recent folder is now at 196 items.

Run5k

Posted 2017-02-25T17:41:08.263

Reputation: 13 092

Thanks for the brilliant explanation! How is the number of shortcuts (151 in my case) in the Recent DIRECTORY regulated? Is this also regulated with a Registry entry? – user1580348 – 2017-02-25T23:59:45.510

As far as I know, it isn't formally regulated. Being an NTFS folder, it could hypothetically have an extraordinary number of files and folders. I have never heard of a method to constrain the limits within an NTFS folder other than the size of the hard drive itself. That being said, you will notice that the contents of that folder are comprised of items that are only 1 or 2 KB, so size shouldn't be an issue. Perhaps someone else will chime in who has a Windows 7 profile that is rather old and tell us how many entries are in their Recent Items folder. – Run5k – 2017-02-26T00:09:31.327

That would surely be interesting (any nerds out there?). BTW, my Windows 7 is at least 5 years old and I use it at least 12 hours every day, so according to the accumulative theory, the Recent directory should contain much more than 151 shortcut files. – user1580348 – 2017-02-26T00:15:39.490

I just updated my answer with a reference from the Microsoft TechNet forums that claims the same registry key modification will affect the number of items within the parent folder, also. – Run5k – 2017-02-26T00:38:36.490

Relation between Recent sub-menu in the Windows Start menu and the Recent directory?

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