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The context is: I did a search in my C: disk (I know, I'm crazy), to search for a very specific keyword. And one of the result file came from the "Recent" folder.

I didn't know this folder, so I checked it out (the path is C:\Users\ <username>\Recent), and a thing felt strange to me: this folder doesn't actually show in C:\Users\ <username>, even with showing hiddens items enabled.

After searching on the Internet, I found that this "Recent" folder is related to the "Recent files (number of files)" in "Quick access. I also found that this folder apparently exists in multiple places (even though I'm still note sure how it's possible).

But what I'm really curious about, is why the Recent folder doesn't show in C:\Users\ <username>, because if I manually add "\Recent" to the path in the path bar, I'm able to access the "Recent" folder.

If I retake the example that Titule is talking about in this post, at least the folder shows in C:\Users\ <username>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows (under a different name, but anyway), so it seems more logical to me. And also, I'm almost 100% sure that those two are somehow the same folder, since their content is exactly the same, and gets modified at the same time.

So what am I missing here ? First time I see something like this.

For information, I use windows 11 on my personal computer, but my computer at the office runs with windows 10, and what I describe is the same on it.

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    Recent is just comprised of links to real files (which could be anywhere). That is why you do not find the real files in Recent.
    – John
    Jul 19 at 16:27
  • Please clarify your specific problem or provide additional details to highlight exactly what you need. As it's currently written, it's hard to tell exactly what you're asking.
    – Community Bot
    Jul 19 at 18:43

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I clearly see Recent in Explorer when displaying the folder C:\Users\username.

As it's just a symbolic link to C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Recent it might not show in your Explorer.

The setting in Explorer that I suspect might be affecting its display is in View > Options and is called "Hide protected operating system f‌iles (Recommended)", which is unchecked for me.

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