How do I delete the entire history (Recently Used Items) in the dash?

Solution 1:

An alternative way, with a simple interface to remove all record logs of Recently Used files and applications in Ubuntu 12.04 is to follow these simple steps:

1. Click on the control icon (cog wheel on top right hand corner of display screen);
2. Select System settings;
3. Click on All Settings tab at the top of the dialogue window that opens up;
4. Select Privacy icon;
5. Select tab Recent Items;
6. Under "Forget Activities option" listed, select All in the drop-down box on the right-hand side of the option;
7. Click on Delete History button;
8. Click on Yes to the confirmation dialogue;
9. Close System Settings application window;

Job is done!

Do this a couple of times and it will become second-nature to cleaning up and protecting yourself every time.

Solution 2:

There is a way to delete the entire history of recent files accessed in Unity rather easily using activity-log-manager .

First of all, install it using the following command:

sudo apt-get install activity-log-manager

After installing it, open the application. In the History tab, select all history in the dropdown list and then press Delete button. Now, the entire history of the accessed files will be deleted.

Solution 3:

While searching a way to clear recent list shown in Totem [ Ubuntu 12.04 ], activity log manager/privacy did not work in my case.

Moreover, there was no file 'recently-used.xbel' in current user's folder.

File recently-used.xbel was located inside ~/.local/share/

For me, nullifying this file worked!

$ echo > ~/.local/share/recently-used.xbel