Solved How to show Recent Items in Save As and Open dialog boxes

I'm running Windows 11 Pro 64-bit Version: 21H2 (OS Build 22000.527). I have added the Recent Items folder to Quick Access in File Explorer, and I would like to do the same thing in Save As and Open dialog boxes. I know this is possible because I did it in Windows 10 (but don't remember how). I'm hoping someone can tell me how to do it in Windows 11.

Thanks!

WinaeroTweaker>Custom Navigation Pane Items.

Thanks for your suggestion, Edwin, but I'd like to find out how to do it manually instead of with an app.

Figured it out with the help of Adding 'Recent Items' to File Explorer & Open/Save Dialogs in Windows 10 - αlphαrithms. I'll condense that page here.

1. Open a Command Prompt as an administrator.
2. Enter the following command:
   
   mklink /j "%USERPROFILE%\Recent Items" %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent
   
   It will come back with something like
   
   Junction created for C:\Users\{username}\Recent Items <<===>> C:\Users\{username}\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Recent
   
   This will put a symbolic link in your C:\Users\{username} folder.
3. Go to that folder and pin the link to your Quick Access menu.

That's it! You should now have a Recent Items link in Quick Access in File Explorer as well as Open and Save As dialogs. If you want to shift that, or any other, pinned link around in the Quick Access menu -- say, to the top of it -- just click on the icon in the Quick Access menu and slowly drag it to the new position. As you drag it, the "tooltip" will alternate between "Copy to {folder}" and "Pin to Quick Access". Drop it when it says the latter.

By the way, if you've already pinned Recent Items to Quick Access in File Explorer, as I had done, you will now have two of them there (or at least I did). Just delete the old one.

I used the registry to customize what locations/places want on the Save As window (screenshots). See How to Customize the File Open/Save Dialog Box in Windows

There's very few applications that still use the comdlg32 box!
The only place I still see it is in the Registry!

Edwin said:

There's very few applications that still use the comdlg32 box!
The only place I still see it is in the Registry!

Click to expand...

I had to add it to the registry My graphics program uses it.