How to clear Quicktime "recent menu" in dock?

I have been pulling my hair out trying to clear the menu that shows the recent (and not so recent) videos for Quicktime in the dock.

Running El Capitan and Quicktime 10.4

I'm trying to clear the "recent items" that show up when one does a right-click on the quicktime icon in the dock.

Instructions I found on the web is to:
1. Clear "Recent Items" under the apple
2. Clear "Recent Items" under Quicktime Player > file > open recent
3. Close Quicktime and do a right-click on the QT icon in the dock and remove from dock

Then, when I launch QT again, the recent menu is supposed to be clear but it's not.
Still has the same videos listed.

From what I can tell, I no longer have these videos on the Mac.
When I try to play them nothing happens and when I go to "Show all windows" with right click on QT icon in the dock, these videos show a generic icon rather than the beginning of the video clip like the more recent ones.

So I think that may be the problem - these QT videos were deleted but the recent items list lingers, but only in the dock listing - all the others I mentioned show nothing for recent items.

I'm tempted to trash QT 10.4, but where can I download and install a replacement version - I don't want to do a new install of El Capitan.

There must be some place on the Mac where the QT recent item list is stored; maybe just go there and delete the ones hanging in there?

It has been a while since I used El Capitan but try the following and see if it works:
1. Launch QuickTime Player
2. From the File menu choose "Open Recent"
3. A menu pops out with a list of recent files that have been opened.
4. One of the options is Clear Menu choose that.

This works in Mojave and I think it will work in El Capitan.

Thanks, I have already done that - one of the steps I described (or tried to describe) in my first post.

This cleared the "Recent" list in the QT file menu fine, but it does nothing for the recent list that comes up with a right click on the QT icon in the dock.
There is no "clear menu" with the QT icon in the dock.

Interesting. That cleared it for me but I'm running Mojave (most recent beta). Maybe that is one of the differences between El Cap and Mojave.

I misread your initial post. When I read it the second time I realize now that you've already tried these steps.

Hi you two, thanks Sly I'd been wondering how to do this for a while, your method worked for me in Mojave 10.14.3. When I click on Show Recents in the Dock QT icon I now get "No Available Windows". Not sure why it's not working for you krs but I don't see why removing the icon from the dock would help anyway. El Cap seems like a long time ago maybe it's a glitch.

Sure seems like a 'glitch' to me, specifically on El Capitan.
Fixed on later macOS as far as I can tell
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7374763

I will try to reboot - sounds like the next logical step.

Yeeeeess!!

Rebooting did the trick!

Nice job. I didn't think of that.

I actually didn't think of it either - it was mentioned in the Apple support thread where other people had the same problem I had and rebooting fixed the problem.

Short of rebooting, you might try dragging the icon off the Dock until it goes poof, then putting a new one back by running the QT program and right-clicking to Keep In Dock. Should reset the link.

Strange I didn't see how that would help but who knows? It's trial an error sometimes.


Sent from my iPhone

Rod Sprague said:

Strange I didn't see how that would help but who knows? It's trial an error sometimes.

Click to expand...

I was thinking the same thing.

Running OnyX in "Maintenance" mode will likewise clear the recents menu. One of the many handy things that OnyX does.

I suggested "poofing" the Dock icon because it *might* be that the recents are still associated with the link and that re-establishing a new link might clear that residue. And it's quicker/easier/more handy than rebooting, I think. Don't know if it would make a difference, but thought it worth trying.

MacInWin said:

Short of rebooting, you might try dragging the icon off the Dock until it goes poof, then putting a new one back by running the QT program and right-clicking to Keep In Dock. Should reset the link.

Click to expand...

I had tried that a few times, didn't help, the recent items were still there.

Rod Sprague said:

Strange I didn't see how that would help but who knows? It's trial an error sometimes.

Click to expand...

The issue was that this part of my Mac somehow ended up in an undefined stage.
The "recent item" list normally shows the most recent 5 or 10 (or whatever number is selected in system preferences) items.
When new files are played in QT, the new file is added to the new items list and the oldest item on the list falls off.
That is the way it is supposed to work, but in my case, when I played new files in QT, the older files in "recent" never changed - they just stayed there.
Well, they stayed there in the list even though they no longer existed on the Mac itself.
I assume that was part of the problem - these items didn't get cleared off the new item list when they should have and somehow got stuck.

chscag said:

Running OnyX in "Maintenance" mode will likewise clear the recents menu. One of the many handy things that OnyX does.

Click to expand...

Good thinking Charlie. I don't run Onyx often so sometimes I forget some of the things it can do.