Claude/Desktop/Code/Q/Is there a way to remove recent items from the Claude Desktop Code tab?

• Is there a way to remove recent items from the Claude/Desktop/Code tab?

  • AI Answer

    • Short answer: There is no in-app control to remove or clear entries from the Recent folder list in the Code tab. The only current workaround is to quit Claude Desktop and delete the entries by hand from the projects key in ~/.claude.json.
    • No in-app removal (as of mid-2026): The Recent list has no right-click menu, hover action, "Remove from recents", or "Clear all" button, and Settings exposes no way to prune it. This is tracked as several open / duplicated requests: #68350 (the one documenting the file workaround), #72181, #35187, and #54044.
    • File-editing workaround: The Recent list is backed by the projects object in ~/.claude.json (in your home directory), keyed by each folder's absolute path.
      • 1. Quit Claude Desktop completely first. A live session rewrites its own entry on exit, so edits made while the app is running are overwritten.
      • 2. Open ~/.claude.json in a text editor and find the "projects" object.
      • 3. Delete the whole key/value block for the path you want gone (e.g. the "/absolute/path/to/some-folder": { … } entry). Deleting all inner entries — leaving "projects": {} — clears the list entirely.
      • 4. Save, then reopen Claude Desktop.
    • Why duplicate-looking rows appear: entries are keyed by absolute path, so the same folder name opened from two locations (e.g. one under ghq/ and one under Documents/) shows as two separate Recent rows and needs two separate deletions.
    • Caveat: ~/.claude.json also holds CLI settings and per-project state; edit only inside "projects" and keep a backup, since a malformed file can reset other state.
    • Sources: Issue #68350 — no way to remove a project from recents without editing ~/.claude.json, Issue #72181 — no way to remove entries from the "Recent" folders list.