How to Remove Unwanted Items from Addressbar History in Windows Explorer?

Recently a visitor asked us how can he remove unwanted items from the drop-down box of Windows Explorer addressbar? We are sure many of you also want to know the same. Whenever we open a path using Explorer addressbar, its automatically stored in the history and anyone can see it by clicking on the addressbar drop-down arrow.

Windows_Explorer_Addressbar_History.png

You can follow these simple steps to remove unwanted items from Windows Explorer addressbar history:

Advertisement

1. Type regedit in RUN dialog box and press Enter. It’ll open Registry Editor.

2. Now go to following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\TypedPaths

In right-side pane, you’ll see various String values with the name url1, url2, url3 and so on. Their value will be set to the path which you see in addressbar drop-down history.

Remove_Windows_Explorer_Addressbar_.png

3. You just need to delete the String value which contains the path which you want to remove from addressbar history list. e.g. if you want to remove the 4th item “C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows” from history, then delete the “url4” String value.

4. That’s it. Now the deleted path will no longer appear in Explorer addressbar history.

Advertisement

PS: If you want to clear the whole history, you can right-click on the addressbar in Windows Explorer and select “Delete history” option.

Published in: Troubleshooting Guides, Windows 7, Windows Vista

About the author: Vishal Gupta (also known as VG) has been awarded with Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional) award. He holds Masters degree in Computer Applications (MCA). He has written several tech articles for popular newspapers and magazines and has also appeared in tech shows on various TV channels.

Comments

NOTE: Older comments have been removed to reduce database overhead.

  1. To think I spent ages trying to find out how to do this. And it turns out all I needed to do was to right click the address bar when it wasn’t focused and select delete history.

  2. Thank you for the help to us neophyte windows users – just smart enough about some things to be DANGEROUS! 🙂

  3. how to disable addres bar in windows explorer 7? only the addres bar, I’ll keep the nav. button

  4. ohhhhhh no all the history Disappeared. i just deleted the String value contains the path which i wanted delete but all history gone.

  5. There is no ‘TypedPaths’ under ‘explorer’ in the registry key of Vista.
    Nothing between ‘StuckRects2’ amd ‘User Shell Folders’.

  6. None of these articles helped, but

    I used CCleaner, ran a standard clean, worked like a charm and didn’t have to touch the registry.

    Granted I was running it on Win Server 2k8

    I promise I am not a shill for CCleaner it just worked way better than any solution I found on the forums in a google search.

  7. Re: Hamed (and all those who tried this and had all their history disappear).
    Make sure that there are no “holes” in your value names and they start with “url1”. You can simple rename the values to achieve this once you are done deleting unwanted entries. eg:
    Name Type Data
    url1 REG_SZ C:\Users
    url2 REG_SZ C:\Program Files

  8. Thank you Batman …

    Another crisis averted through simplicity (I guess that’s a first for Gotham City’s Defender)

    “To think I spent ages trying to find out how to do this. And it turns out all I needed to do was to right click the address bar when it wasn’t focused and select delete history.”

    Brilliant …
    meh@regedit!

    Grun

  9. Thank You Very Much!

    I do a LOT of searches. Pretty soon it gets clogged. This article helped me immensely.

    Donna

  10. Well it is a long way.
    shorter way is –
    just go to recent places by typing “recent” in “run” (win+R)
    and by clicking the address bar on recent folder you will get option to delete it.

  11. This does not work in Win Vista. An error message displays saying it cannot find the specified key.

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

NOTE: Your comment may not appear immediately. It'll become visible once we approve it.