Ever wondered how to hide your tracks and disable the "Recent Documents" folder inside Ubuntu. Well here is a How To: Ubuntu Clear and Disable Recent Documents that is broken down for the newbie to grasp and learn some of the inner workings of Linux.
Open up a Terminal window by clicking on Application / Accessories / Terminal from the top panel menu and enter the following set of commands:
@her###:~$ rm ~/.recently-used.xbelFirst we remove (rm) the file recently-used.xbel (~ points to the root of you $HOME direcotory) which is used to store a list of recently used documents.
@her###:~$ touch ~/.recently-used.xbelTouch creates a new file recently-used.xbel.
@her###:~$ sudo chattr +i ~/.recently-used.xbel
Finally we give the file the i(2) attribute which cannot be modified, deleted, or linked to, making it clean of any information.
Now when you check Places / Recent Documents again, it should be greyed out and disabled.
Should you one day change your mind and want to get back your "Recent Documents" just remove the 'i' attribute from the file.
(1) Update the access and modification times of each FILE to the current time.
(2) A file with the 'i' attribute cannot be modified: it cannot be deleted or renamed, no link can be created to this file and no data can be written to the file. Only the superuser or a process possessing the CAP_LINUX_IMMUTABLE capability can set or clear this attribute.
Now when you check Places / Recent Documents again, it should be greyed out and disabled.
Should you one day change your mind and want to get back your "Recent Documents" just remove the 'i' attribute from the file.
@her###:~$ sudo chattr -i ~/.recently-used.xbel(1) Update the access and modification times of each FILE to the current time.
(2) A file with the 'i' attribute cannot be modified: it cannot be deleted or renamed, no link can be created to this file and no data can be written to the file. Only the superuser or a process possessing the CAP_LINUX_IMMUTABLE capability can set or clear this attribute.