You would need to access your Profile folders.

Make hidden folders and files visible.

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Show_hidden_files_and_folders

In Thunderbird:

• Help > Troubleshooting Information
• click on 'Show Folder' button
• A new window opens showing your Profile folders.

• Close Thunderbird now - this is important.
• locate and delete the panacea.dat file.
• Close the window.
• Restart Thunderbird.

A new panacea.dat file will be auto produced. If you then recheck : View > Folders >Recent it should only show any folder you had opened since restarting Thunderbird.

Well, now I see why I couldn't find it. Pretty obscure, but it did exactly what I needed. Thanks!

I like "View Folders Recent", and want to know what "recent" is. What is it? How does one control it?

oldProgrammer: Thunderbird automatically determines what is recent. But it will be determined by what folder you have recently used. It was designed to show the most recently used, not necessarilly the most often used. I believe it shows up to 15 of the most recently used folders. 'Recent' folders are available in the Move To or Copy To menus, which can be very useful.

If you have folders you use more frequently and would like to have a specific view of those folders, I suggest you use 'Favourite' as you have full control over this. You can set/unset any folder as 'Favourite'. you can set several folders as Favourite'. Right click on folder and select 'Favourite folder'. Then you can change the view; View > Folders > Favourite

If "Favorite" had the effect of making it ever-"Recent", I would like it—but no.

You can't set your unified inbox to a favourite. It has the option to mark it as favourite, but when you switch to the favourite view it's not there. You then have to favourite the individual inboxes and get them to show up, but you can't have both - Favourite and a unified inbox - so not a lot of use really.

re :You can't set your unified inbox to a favourite

That's because the Unified Inbox is a type of search folder created for a unified view.

But I agree - if there is a drop down context option to choose ' favourite' then you expect it to appear in Favourite view.

So they should fix or remove the option to stop confusion.

I've located a bug report that was initially created years ago.

• https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=537342

I suggest you vote for the bug. Tell them your OS and TB version.

This question is going off topic. The question is specificlly about 'edit/reset the "recent" folder list'. The question was asked, responded to and a solution accepted.

Please create a new question for your specific issue, if it has nothing to do with how to edit/reset the "recent" folder list.

I have done this in the past, and it worked, but recently I have an INBOX folder from one of my accounts in the recent list, and deleting panacea doesn't clear it. Any ideas?

ncc74656 re lI have an INBOX folder from one of my accounts in the recent list,

So you are not checking that accounts Inbox for new mail? When you delete the panacea.dat file, it will be recreated when you start Thunderbird. It will immediately enter any folder you are currently viewing on startup and any folder you select thereafter.

My inbox is just that - an inbox. From there, I file messages in one of several folders, and I only want those folders to show in the recent list. I never file messages *to* the inbox - only from there to another folder.

It might be the startup folder that triggered the list entry, although I've never seen that before.

To complicate things, I never saw the panacea file re-written to the folder where it was.