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Excel 2016 lost MRU list

A few minutes ago I saw a message that Excel had to close and restart. Afterward I lost my list of Most Recently Used (MRU) files. That is, if I go to File > Open, the list of files I had recently opened is gone. It says something like "you don't have any recently used files. I googled this and I saw the following post:

"The "Recent Documents" and "Recent Places" lists for Excel and Word are in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Excel\File MRU (and Place MRU) and HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Word\File MRU (and Place MRU), respectively. What you describe indicates to me that something is damaging those registry keys or preventing them from being written properly. Do you run any add-ins in Office or use any PC cleaning programs?"

I looked at the registry key noted above and I do see 50 items listed there with a GUID followed by the path to the respective files. How do I tell Excel to reconnect to this list?

BTW, MS Word still shows the MRU files in File > Open. Only Excel has lost the link to this MRU list.

My OS is Windows 10 Enterprise x64 and I am using Office 2016 32-bit.

Thanks,
Don

Roy Cox

I don't think this is easily achievable. You could try a system restore.

However, going forward Ken Puls has a useful addin that will avoid this. It's a free download available here

He also has an alternative that looks very good here

Quick update - the addin actually lists recent files, so it my recover your existing list

Davis McCarn

That post you quoted is for Office 2007 (AKA 12.0). You need to inspect HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Excel\User MRU\ which is where Excel 2016 should have its MRU list. You may be able to export the one you found under 12.0 and then import it; but, please, only do the File MRU folder and it would be a good idea to edit the REG file so you can change the 12.0 to 15.0 if it is included.
You might also want to backup the registry before you do it:
http://www.tweaking.com/content/page/registry_backup.html

Member_2_79173

ASKER

Sorry, I forgot to say that I navigated to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Excel\User MRU (Office 2016 is 16, not 15). That shows all the MRU items
Office-2016-MRU-Registry.png

Davis McCarn

Your picture is of the Word MRU. Look up above and inspect the Excel MRU.

Member_2_79173

ASKER

Sorry,
Here is the Excel MRU list. I left off the actual paths for privacy but you can see how many there are.

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Davis McCarn

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Member_2_79173

ASKER

Davis,

It wasn't empty but had 5 entries as I had opened 5 files since yesterday. But I exported that key, opened it for editing with Notepad, opened the other exported key (with all the items) with Notepad, copied 1 item from the latter to the former, saved it, imported it, opened Excel and found the added item in the list. Then I copied all the other items to the latter key export file, saved it, crossed my fingers and imported it. Voila! Now all of those appear in the MRU list in Excel. This gets me back where I need to be. I'd never recommend to a user to do that but since I'm an IT guy I figured if I blew up my computer I could fix it. I will be accepting your comment as the answer. Thanks! Don

Member_2_79173

ASKER

Thanks!
Don