I have 3 links in the "Recent" section of the popup that appears when you "right-click" on the Firefox icon pinned to the taskbar. I am unable to remove them.
I do not know the correct terms to describe the part of Firefox I am having trouble with. These three links were originally saved on my desktop. I deleted them when I no longer needed them. When I attempt to remove them, nothing happens. If I try to open them, I receive an error message window saying, "The item you selected is unavailable. It might have been moved, renamed, or removed. Do you want to remove it from the list?". There are a "Delete" and "Cancel" buttons in the window. When I select Delete, nothing happens. I have tried to delete the bookmark from my bookmarks, but it is not there. Any suggestion would be appreciated
Chosen solution
Completely understand that your PC has had to take a back seat.
OK, on your PC go to Settings > Personalisation > Start (on left-hand side) and turn off 'Show recently opened items in Jump lists on Start or the taskbar.' That should clear the Recent history, so hopefully if you turn it back on again the deleted items will have gone. Note that it will also clear 'Recent' on the Start Menu but it will gradually repopulate once turned on again.
The only other thing I can think of, would be to use System Restore to roll back to a date before you deleted anything. (Start Menu > Windows System > This PC > Properties > System protection). The only problem with that, is I've a feeling that System Restore is - or was, turned off by default in Win10 - no idea why!
Read this answer in context 👍 1All Replies (7)
Hi Don West, please ignore the spam message promoting an unofficial phone number.
Hello Don,
Would you try this please :
Type in the address bar about:config and press Enter. (ignore the warning)
Type in the search bar and look for the preference :
browser.taskbar.lists.recent.enabled
If the value is set to "true", then change it to false.
Then close and restart Firefox.
If changing the value doesn't make a difference, then reset it.
You could also take a look at these preferences :
browser.taskbar.lists.enabled browser.taskbar.lists.frequent.enabled browser.taskbar.lists.maxListItemCount
Any luck ?
Hi McCoy, I appologize for the long delay in responding, I thought that I could "reply" to you, but...
Here is what I sent yesterday afternoon: Hello McCoy, Thank you for your prompt response. When opened browser.taskbar.lists.recent.enabled, it was already set to false. I do not know how to reset it. I did not see that as an option, only to "toggle". What am I looking for with respect to the other 3 preferences? The first two are "true", the third one is "7".
Best Regards, Don
Hi, try restarting Firefox. If that doesn't help, look in your Windows Recycle Bin, and if the links that you deleted are there, right click > Restore them and then see if you can now remove them from the Taskbar icon list - once removed, it should be safe to delete them from your Desktop.
Something else you could try: Press the Windows key + R to open the Run box, then enter %appdata% and click OK. now navigate through Microsoft > Windows > Recent Items, and if you can see the items that weren't deleted, right click > Delete.
Modified by Scribe
Hello Scribe, Sorry to report, these suggestions did not allow me to remove the links either. Sorry it took so long to reply; we have had some illness in the family.
Chosen Solution
Completely understand that your PC has had to take a back seat.
OK, on your PC go to Settings > Personalisation > Start (on left-hand side) and turn off 'Show recently opened items in Jump lists on Start or the taskbar.' That should clear the Recent history, so hopefully if you turn it back on again the deleted items will have gone. Note that it will also clear 'Recent' on the Start Menu but it will gradually repopulate once turned on again.
The only other thing I can think of, would be to use System Restore to roll back to a date before you deleted anything. (Start Menu > Windows System > This PC > Properties > System protection). The only problem with that, is I've a feeling that System Restore is - or was, turned off by default in Win10 - no idea why!
Thanks Scribe! It appears that toggling off and back on the 'Show recently opened items in Jump lists on Start or the taskbar.' has cleared the three items I was having trouble with. (They were the only ones I had at this time.) Hopefully Windows will resume recording "recently opened links" for me.