As you work in Excel, the files that you’ve used most recently appear at the bottom of the File menu — Mort Recently Used Files (MRU).
- The default number of files that appear in the MRU list is 4
- You can increase the MRU number to 9, if you follow the steps below.
If you’d like to see even more recently used Excel files, take a look at the free Excel add-in, described below
Tools Options
To change the number of recently used files shown, follow these steps:
- In Excel, click the Tools menu, and then click Options.
- When the Options dialog box opens, click on the General tab.
- In the Settings section, change the number for the “Recently used file list”
- Be sure that the option has a check mark
XLG Favourites Add-in
If you’d like more than 9 entries, and some control of the list order and names, you can download and install Ken Puls’ XLG Favourites Add-in, from his Excel Guru site.
Stephen mentioned this add-in yesterday in the comments, and I’ve installed it to try it out. Thanks, Stephen!
- The add-in creates an XLG Favourites item in your File menu
- Click that command, to open your favourite files, and manage what’s on that list of Excel files.
Add and Rename Items
With the XLG Favourites add-in, you can quickly add the current workbook to the list.
Also, you can use the Manage XLG Favourites command to rename the items, and change the order of the list.
I’ve got several Excel files that I use every day. This add-in will make it easy for me to find and open them quickly.
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Debra, one of the great benefits I found in this add-in is to be able to add favourite folders as well as favourite files. eg. a folder for each project, customer, etc.
And the files you can add are not just limited to Excel files. eg. adding a pdf or doc file then selecting it from the XLG Favourites menu will see the file open in their native application – so there’s even less reason to work from any application other than Excel! 🙂
(Glad to provide some inspiration for your blog. Keep up the good work.)
Thanks Stephen, and inspiration is always appreciated! I haven’t tried the folders or other apps files yet, so thanks for pointing out those features.