How to Fix “Recents” Folder Empty on Mac

The Mac Finder Recent Projects folder is a practical smart folder that, as the name implies, contains all recently opened, modified, or added files in the file system. This means that the Recent Projects folder should contain various files, such as text files, documents, PDFs, images, videos, etc., as long as they are recently opened, added, or edited on your Mac. However, sometimes the Recent Projects folder on your Mac will appear empty, when in fact it should contain many recently used files.

Let's troubleshoot and resolve the issue that the Recent Projects folder is empty on your Mac so that you can easily access recently used files again.

How to fix the Recent Projects folder on your Mac: Restart

An easy way to fix the Recent Projects folder above your Mac is to restart your Mac.

Restarting your Mac will trigger Spotlight to re-execute the indexing function, which helps populate the "Recently Used Projects" smart folder.

The easiest way to restart your Mac is to go to the  Apple menu and select Restart .

After the Mac restarts, let the index and other background tasks complete (this is usually fast, depending on the last restart and the number of files on the Mac), and then open "Recently Used Projects" again. At this point, it should populate the recently opened file as expected.

Usually, the Recent Projects folder will populate the files quickly after a restart, but it may take longer if the entire Mac is reindexed after a major system software update.

What is the "Recently Used Projects" folder and how it works?

The Recent Projects folder is the default Finder folder in modern macOS versions, which displays all files you recently opened.

"Recently used projects" is technically a "smart folder", which means it has search parameters attached to display all files that match those search parameters. For Recent Projects, the Smart Folder is looking for file data that shows the last time the file was opened and displayed and sorted by that information. Therefore, "Recently Used Projects" works by displaying any/all files in the order in which the files were last opened on your Mac.

While Recent Projects are great and useful, you can always create your own smart folders in the Finder's File menu and set your own parameters.

If you do not want "Recently Used Projects" as the default Finder folder, you can change it in the Finder settings shown here.

Why is the "Recently Used Projects" folder sometimes empty?

First, let's assume that there are files on your Mac that should be included in the Recent Projects folder. If the Mac is brand new and there are no files in the file system, the Recent Projects folder will be empty because there are no files. However, we assume that this does not apply to most users who encounter the "Recently Used Projects" folder as empty.

For some Mac users, the most likely reason why the Recent Projects folder appears empty is that macOS is repopulating or reindexing the Recent Projects smart folder, which may take some time to complete. This is why sometimes after installing system software updates, the Recent Projects folder appears blank or empty, but after a while it will populate the file data again because the file is reindexed and added to the smart folder again.

Sometimes, "Recently Used Projects" cannot display any files because there is a problem with the index, or there is a problem with Finder, which is why restarting your Mac usually solves the problem. When you restart your Mac, various system processes are triggered, including indexing of data on your Mac, and the Recently Used Projects folder will work as expected as the files are reindexed.

Restart Finder to fix "Recently Used Projects" on your Mac is empty

Some Mac users say they can restart Finder instead of the entire Mac, which can fix the "Recently Used Projects" folder. In my own experience of testing and using an empty "recently used project" folder, a complete restart and waiting for the index to complete is the solution, but it is worth mentioning the other approaches.

Changing search criteria may also solve the problem

Additionally, some Mac users noticed that they could change the search parameters associated with the Recent Projects folder to the following:

(kMDItemLastUsedDate = “*”) &&

This also addresses the issue of the "Recently Used Projects" folder empty for some Mac users.

Many users complain and dissatisfied with the issue of "recently used projects" empty are discussed on nearly all Apple forums (including discussions.apple.com, reddit, forums.macrumors, etc.). For most users, restarting is enough to solve the problem. If you have encountered this problem yourself and found other solutions, please share it in the comments below!

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