Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. If you are using an earlier version (Word 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Word, click here: Grabbing the MRU List.

Grabbing the MRU List

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated January 8, 2025)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021

Word allows you to maintain a list of the most-recently used (MRU) files. This list can record the names of the most recently opened and edited within Word. You can see the MRU list by clicking the Office button (in Word 2007), clicking the File tab of the ribbon and then Recent (in Word 2010), or clicking the File tab of the ribbon and then Open (in later versions of Word).

If you want to grab the names of the MRU files and insert those names in a document, you can use the following VBA macro:

Sub MostRecent()
    Dim r as RecentFile

    For Each r in RecentFiles
        Selection.TypeText Text:=r.Name
        Selection.TypeParagraph
    Next r
End Sub

The macro accesses each member of the RecentFiles collection, adding the name of each member to the document.

Note:

If you would like to know how to use the macros described on this page (or on any other page on the WordTips sites), I've prepared a special page that includes helpful information. Click here to open that special page in a new browser tab.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (13360) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Grabbing the MRU List.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen...

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What is five more than 7?

2025-01-08 10:19:49

Beepee

Hi.
I'm still a bit of a novice when it comes to Word VBA.
I've used the above macro (Word 2019) - just fine, thank you (again) Allen.
I started with a long list (50 items) and discovered I can reduce this in the File>Options>Advanced>Display>Show this number of Recent Documents...
I also modified macro to list files each with a number:
Sub MostRecent() 'list recently used Files in current document
Dim r As RecentFile
Dim n As Integer
n = 1
For Each r In RecentFiles
Selection.TypeText Text:=n & " "
Selection.TypeText Text:=r.Name
Selection.TypeParagraph
n = n + 1
Next r
End Sub
What would be really handy is to add the associated date after the file name - but I've been unable to achieve this!
Any help would be much appreciated.
Thanks
B

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