How to get Finder Recents to Include External Drive

[w4rm]

Hey,
Currently my Finder Recents folder in the side bar only includes files on my internal drive. How do I expand it to also include recent files on my external drive?

Cheers

 

[Taz Mangus]

You will need to create a finder smart folder:

1. Open finder.
2. File -> New Smart Folder
3. Click on '+' (Upper right corner next to save button).
4. Leave 'Kind' and 'Any' as is.
5. Click on '+' again.
6. Leave 'Last opened date' and 'within last' as is. Fill in the number of days.
7. Click 'Save' button.
8. For 'Save As:' enter Recents, leave "Add To Sidebar" checked.

This should do the same thing as the default recents and list anything accessed on your external hard drives. You can then remove the default Recents from the sidebar.

 

[w4rm]

Hey thanks but this doesn't seem to work as intended, I'm getting a lot of ~/Library and files from system folders or Application Support, iMessage Chats in there etc. The neat thing about the default Finder one is that it filters those out and just includes user files.

Is there any way to have it also look through External Drives?

Best

 

[Rodric]

Hey thanks but this doesn't seem to work as intended, I'm getting a lot of ~/Library and files from system folders or Application Support, iMessage Chats in there etc. The neat thing about the default Finder one is that it filters those out and just includes user files.

Is there any way to have it also look through External Drives?

Best

Follow the above instructions, but navigate to the drive you want to search before selecting ‘New Smart Folder’ and choose it (instead of ‘This Mac’) as part of the search criteria. Optionally, you may want to change ‘Kind’ from ‘Any’ to ‘Document.’