Files from network locations not appearing anymore in Recent/Pinned

Logan 70

In Excel, I no longer see files I've opened from network locations in the recent files list, and the pinned workbooks from network locations are missing. The drive is still mapped and I can access the files by navigating there. I've tried opening and saving network files and they still don't appear, even searching in the Open > Recent view. I've already checked if I had any pending updates and tried restarting my computer. Just checked, and seems PowerPoint has the same issues, so I'm thinking it's some sort of Microsoft 365 issue.

Kyle Davis 5 Reputation points

2024-03-20T21:14:48.54+00:00

Seeing the same issue with a user here, tried re-installing office, re-mapping the network drive and restarting machine.
Douglas Lange 25 Reputation points

2024-03-21T03:25:59.1666667+00:00

Having the same issue, and it's also affecting MS Word and MS Access. I was working in an Excel workbook which has been on my pinned list for months. I had opened that file from my pinned list, and closed it when I was done. I did NOT close Excel, but all of my pinned and recent file entries are gone. Furthermore, now when I open a file and close it, I still don't see it in the recent files list. I opened Word and Access, and both of them are also missing the recent files list. The option for recent files is still set at 50 files for all 3 programs, so that hasn't changed. I used Access this morning, and the list was still available then. WTF is going on?
James Ledbetter 0 Reputation points

2024-03-21T12:57:13.4666667+00:00

We have a user noticing the same issue. Also see the Office 365 updated on her machine yesterday, Recent/Pinned items that were located on network drive are gone and it will not create new ones. Only for OneDrive items. Unsure about other local folders or SharePoint.
Edward Sebesta 50 Reputation points

2024-03-21T14:28:06.87+00:00

I have the same problem. A LOT OF PEOPLE ARE HAVING THIS PROBLEM.
Jon Meuse 0 Reputation points

2024-03-21T15:54:15.7733333+00:00

I have the same problem.

There is only one file showing up in my recent list and its on my OneDrive.

Very annoying.
N K 0 Reputation points

2024-03-21T18:32:53.65+00:00

I have the same problem, across the Office suite. All recent and pinned files have disappeared. Moreover, neither list adds files I open now, so it is impossible to manually reconstruct my pinned list. Based on others' comments, this appears to be related to the update that was pushed out yesterday.
Murphy, E 0 Reputation points

2024-03-21T18:34:23.7366667+00:00

Had this issue present - even after performing online repair. However, when another user signs in to the same computer, their documents from the network/local computer show up just fine in Recent documents/Pinned. Only specific user on this computer is seeing issue, very strange. Tried signing that user out of all O365 products, signing back in, but did not resolve. We could remove the local windows profile, but that seems extreme for this issue.
Tyler Day 0 Reputation points

2024-03-21T19:28:30.32+00:00

Have a user with same issue, files saved to a network drive mounted through Egnyte are not showing up in recent in power point office suite is on. (Version 2403 build 17425.20070)
Tyler Day 0 Reputation points

2024-03-21T19:29:36.5+00:00

Have a user with same issue, files saved to a network drive mounted through Egnyte are not showing up in recent in power point office suite is on. (Version 2403 build 17425.20070)
Matthew Thom 0 Reputation points

2024-03-21T19:53:52.9266667+00:00

I have a user with the same issue too. I haven't seen any cases of this happening before this week.
Bernard Bleakley 0 Reputation points

2024-03-21T21:50:43.9766667+00:00

I am having the same issue across all my Office products. Won't update the recent list and all of the pinned items are gone on Excel, Word and Access. In fact, the recent list isn't the recent list that is normally there. I agree with another person's post that it is connected to Onedrive in some way. For me this began this morning 3/21/2024. I reviewed programs in Control Panel and Microsoft One Drive was updated in my PC on 3/20/2024. It is a huge inconvenience, not real happy with the time spent trying to figure out a way to restore this stuff when it appears it is a bug.
Douglas Lange 25 Reputation points

2024-03-21T23:15:40.2633333+00:00

BE VERY CAREFUL about the "online repair" bit. I just tried it, and it completely UNINSTALLED my MS Office applications, then it told me it couldn't find a compatible MS 365 version. Let me reiterate, MY OFFICE APPS ARE NOW UNINSTALLED. THANKS (FOR NOTHING) MICROSOFT!!!! Now I have to do a complete re-install, and it will probably want me to use the ripoff 365 version
Howard Goldberg 0 Reputation points

2024-03-22T11:14:00.7+00:00

It's not just network locations. I am on the current Office 365 channel, but manually check for updates. On one system, after installing the latest 2403 build, no recent docs show up in the file tab on all Office 365 apps, nor would newly opened files populate. These are all local files (home computer). On another computer with the same Office build, the issue does not manifest. Performing a repair uninstalled office. When I reinstalled from my account portal, 2402 was downloaded and recent files populated correctly again in all apps except Word > For all other apps, the recent files that had disappeared returned (so the file that contains the recents was clearly intact and readable). For Word, recent files functionality worked again with 2402, but it was starting from scratch (all previous recents were gone, but new files populated.) Something in the 2403 build of Word is mucking with recent files for all Office apps (at least that's my hypothesis). My concern is that when 2403 is pushed/forced, I will have to live with the issue. While I have OneDrive connected as a location, all the files are local that I have opened (so there would be no recents populated from opening a file on OneDrive).
David Fosbenner 21 Reputation points

2024-03-22T13:39:22.31+00:00

Same issue here for a number of users in our company. So this is a months-old problem with no help from Microsoft that I can find. Normal in other words.
Darren Stoner 0 Reputation points

2024-03-22T15:06:29.19+00:00

Lesson learnt by me this week. don't rely on Microsoft features for remembering all the file locations on all the networks.. my cheat sheet was also pinned. time to make a shortcut folder on my desktop like we all used to do in 1998
Angelo Carino 0 Reputation points

2024-03-22T17:10:20.3333333+00:00

I have also encountered this issue. Files from network drive will appear in recent for a day, even will stick after a reboot then disappear the next day however other files on OneDrive and locally stick in recent. Happening in Word and Excel
stephen pollack 5 Reputation points

2024-03-22T19:20:44.2433333+00:00

Same problem - all office365 products, seems like it is now locked into files on OneDrive -- which is not very useful. Anyone heard of a workaround as yet?
Neil Howard 0 Reputation points

2024-03-22T20:36:56.1266667+00:00

I have the same problem. Just started a day or two ago. I tried quick and thorough MS Office repairs from Control Panel. I even tried a complete uninstall/reinstall. None of these attempted fixes worked.

I tried asking at Microsoft Support, but they said since my version of MS Office 2021 is a one-time purchase product (as opposed to their Office 365 subscription model), they cannot help. Not very helpful to say the least!!
Karen Hurney 0 Reputation points

2024-03-22T21:29:25.0766667+00:00

I am a CPA and this is the middle of tax season. I soooo do NOT need this crap right now. None of my pinned files are there. Does not show anything in recent. Only wants to look at OneDrive which I have uninstalled. MICROSOFT PLEASE FIX THIS!!!!
GSW 0 Reputation points

2024-03-29T03:11:22.0833333+00:00

I also had the same problem with version 2403. Only could see files on OneDrive (even though OneDrive had been uninstalled, weird), and could NOT see any local files. Went into 'Office Account', 'Account Privacy' 'Manage Settings' and under All connected experiences unchecked 'Turn on all connected experiences'.

Now all the local recent files started working for Word, Excel, etc. Obviously don't see the OneDrive files now, but that's ok, I'm running in a local account. I did this several days ago, and it's still working even with restarting the computer several times. Clearly this is a bug and I shouldn't need to alter the privacy settings to make this work!
Wagner, Kenneth 0 Reputation points

2024-09-19T15:49:31.21+00:00

Same problem here, with all office apps. Didn't have the problem before upgrading Office

4 answers

Jiajing Hua-MFST 9,425 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor

2024-03-21T06:16:19.3933333+00:00

Hi @Logan

Please try performing online repair for your Office from Contral Panel for a check.

You may also check out Kyle Davis's suggestion.

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Edward Sebesta 50 Reputation points

2024-03-21T14:29:03.9466667+00:00

This is happening to a lot of users. Stop offering the "the try this, try that."

Jewett, Kevin 0 Reputation points

2024-03-21T16:02:28.54+00:00

Did repair and checked all settings..........still the same

Keith_NDD 5 Reputation points

2024-03-21T19:19:13.2933333+00:00

There is also a thread of folks having this issue here:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/all-recent-pinned-file-links-lost/ecb5c00d-1916-4b80-a333-551348443e04?page=1

This is a larger problem and may have to do with OneDrive or something in Office 365.

stephen pollack 5 Reputation points

2024-03-22T19:21:24.6466667+00:00

This has no affect -- any chance we can get an escalation, sounds like a system wide problem affecting many users

Neil Howard 0 Reputation points

2024-03-22T20:38:07.21+00:00

Online repair (simple and thorough) didn't work for me.
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Raza 0 Reputation points

2024-03-22T20:21:28.17+00:00

@kyle davis Were you able to fix this issue after that?
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Logan 70 Reputation points

2024-03-22T22:02:21.5533333+00:00
I started messing around with OneDrive after reading through the comments here, and the thread Keith linked, https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/all-recent-pinned-file-links-lost/ecb5c00d-1916-4b80-a333-551348443e04?page=1.

This was how things happened for me yesterday:

My version of OneDrive was showing as 24.045.0303.0003. I tried uninstalling OneDrive and installed older versions, and things seemed to work again briefly, but not after a restart.

I uninstalled the old version and reinstalled 24.045.0303.0003 (straight from https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/onedrive/download). Didn't work.

I tried going into OneDrive settings and opted into the Insider preview updates and it updated to whatever newer version that was. Didn't work.

Opted back out and uninstalled, reinstalled with that same setup file downloaded earlier (back to 24.045.0303.0003). Still not seeing network files in recent.

Went to bed. Woke up. Noticed it's working right now.

I don't know what changed. I looked through files modified since last night, nothing stands out. I'll just share other notes/observations that might help, but probably aren't related.

My laptop is managed by my org. The Windows user profile is tied into OneDrive and Azure AD, however that works... So they set group policy and all that.

My office version ("Microsoft 365") looks like it's version 2302 (Build 16130.20644), think I found it was Semi-Annual Enterprise Channel. I didn't make any changes to 365 when messing with everything.

I first noticed the issue very shortly after a Teams update, moved from classic to whatever the new client is (since classic dropping support April). Although, I restarted my computer right after, and I think that was around when OneDrive originally updated to 24.045.0303.0003.

When I first started looking at OneDrive, I think I saw a few files showing as version 24.040.0225.0003 instead of 24.045.0303.0003 (something about file sync). Now I can't find those, everything shows 24.045.0303.0003.

I restarted after I found everything was working today, and so far it still is.
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Jiajing Hua-MFST 9,425 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor

2024-03-25T08:25:06.6733333+00:00

Hi @Logan

Sorry for the inconvenience caused to you. Thanks for your kindness in sharing solution.

As far as I know, Microsoft has fixed the Recent/Pinned list problem.
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N K 0 Reputation points

2024-03-24T17:18:37.33+00:00

Following Logan's post, I uninstalled OneDrive (my version was 24.045.0303.0001) and the problems disappeared. I haven't re-installed it.
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Files from network locations not appearing anymore in Recent/Pinned

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