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Recent Files Manager
New[Windows][Mac][InDesign]
Recent Files — recent documents on a completely different level. You see the state of every document. You filter by typing. Open a copy, switch to thumbnails, place a document straight into the layout you are working in, and pin the one you are living in to your favourites. Everything else is in the manual. Adobe InDesign 18.5 and newer. Windows and macOS.
open manual ↗price
19 €
* Prices do not include payment processing fees charged by the Gumroad platform.
What it does
43 featuresList and order
- The order comes straight from InDesign (File › Open Recent), so the document you opened last is always at the top.
- The list remembers everything after InDesign is closed and goes much further back than the 20 items in the menu (80 by default, can be raised).
- Full paths come from the Windows registry, even when InDesign shortens them in the menu to a bare file name.
- Even a row with no path found can still be opened, because InDesign's own menu item opens it.
- The list refreshes itself whenever a document is opened, closed or saved.
- Search by name and by folder as you type.
- Click a column heading to sort by it.
Columns
- Folder, date opened, date saved, InDesign version and file size, each can be switched on or off.
- The InDesign version is read from the file header, without opening the document.
- The Folder column shows the full path, and when it doesn't fit, trims it from the left one folder at a time.
- Every column can be resized by dragging. When the columns are wider than the panel, a horizontal scrollbar appears.
Marks
- Green = the document is open right now.
- Red = the file is missing or on a drive that can't be reached. The row greys out instead of disappearing.
- Amber = the document is pinned to the top.
- Violet = a colleague has the document open on another computer, and the tooltip shows since when.
- The footer shows a count for each colour.
Page previews
- A preview of the selected document beside the list, with arrows to step through the pages of multi-page documents.
- A grid of first pages, for finding a document by how it looks.
- Previews are read straight from the file, without opening it in InDesign.
- Build all page previews prepares previews for the whole list in the background, and the panel stays usable while it runs.
- Render a preview with InDesign creates a preview for documents that don't carry one.
- Finished previews are saved, so next time they're there at once.
- The AHK version takes grid thumbnails from the Windows Explorer cache first.
Opening and placing
- Double-click, Enter or the Open button, several documents at once too.
- With Ctrl, an untitled copy opens instead, so the original can't be overwritten.
- Place in the active document loads the document into the cursor and you place it with a click, several documents at once too.
- Drag a row out of the panel and the document is loaded into the cursor straight away.
- Reveal the folder in Explorer or Finder, and copy the path to the clipboard.
- Open with offers the other programs that open .indd files (AHK version).
- Pin an important job to the top.
- Remove a row from the list, and it comes back when you open the document again.
Team and network
- Spots documents open on another computer by the lock file InDesign keeps beside them.
- Recognises and ignores a lock left behind by a crashed InDesign.
- The check is off by default, and how often it runs can be set.
- It waits only briefly on a network drive that doesn't answer, so the panel never freezes.
The panel
- The UXP plugin adds itself to the File menu, right under Open Recent.
- The AHK version comes up from anywhere with Ctrl+Win+Shift+R, even when InDesign isn't in front.
- Works from the keyboard too: arrows, Enter, Ctrl+A, Ctrl+C, Del, F5.
- The tooltip on every document shows the full path, version, size and dates.
- Shows progress while the list is read and while a document opens.
- Colours follow InDesign's interface brightness, and the panel size can be set.
- Diagnostics and a log show what the panel asked InDesign and what came back.
- The UXP plugin runs in InDesign 18.5 and later on Windows and macOS, the AHK version on Windows.
Changelogv1.4.0
1.4.02026-10-05
Added
- **A 14-day trial and a licence.** Everything works for 14 days from the first time the panel opens; the footer counts the days down. After that the list, search, the columns, the page beside the list, Reveal and Copy path keep working, and opening, placing and building previews need a licence. Buy the full version from **Licence...** in the panel menu, paste the key Gumroad gives you and press Activate. The same key activates your other computers and the AHK version, and once confirmed it works offline for 30 days at a time.
Changed
- The plugin is called **Recent Files Manager** now - in the Window menu, in the File menu under Open Recent, and in its own windows. Settings, history and previews carry on as they were.
1.3.22026-09-30
Fixed
- An error in the footer - a document that could not be opened, for example - stayed there or kept coming back on its own after it had gone. A message now shows for four seconds when it happens and does not return unless it happens again.
1.3.12026-09-30
Changed
- Settings and the other dialogs are laid out like the rest of the Zalesky Workflow panels. The content scrolls inside the window while the buttons stay on the bottom edge, and the window can be dragged bigger - the content grows with it. Each value has its label above it, its unit right after it (documents, seconds, MB) and its explanation underneath.
1.3.02026-09-29
Added
- **Documents open on another computer** get a violet mark, a count in the footer ("open elsewhere") and, in the tooltip, the time they were opened. The panel looks for the lock file InDesign keeps beside every open document. A lock left behind by a crashed InDesign is recognised and ignored. Off by default: switch it on in Settings under Files, and choose how often it checks (every 60 seconds unless you say otherwise; it also checks on every refresh).
Changed
- A document over the size limit in Settings no longer claims to have no preview. The grid says "too large to read", and the page beside the list and the tooltip give its size and the limit, with the two ways round it: raise the limit, or Render a preview with InDesign.
- After **Render a preview with InDesign**, the page beside the list shows the rendered picture too. It used to go on saying there was no preview while the grid showed it.
- **Show page previews** is no longer in Settings. It was the same switch as the box beside Open in the footer, which is where it stays. Settings keeps **Build all page previews**.
Fixed
- A document taken out with **Remove from the list** came back on the next refresh or the next time the panel opened, without being opened again. It stays out now until you actually open it again.
1.2.12026-09-28
Added
- **ZAFLO Recent Files in InDesign's File menu**, directly under Open Recent, which is where anyone looks for it. It opens the panel. The plugin puts it back every time InDesign starts, so there is nothing to install and nothing to keep.
- **Build all page previews**, in the panel menu and in Settings under Page previews. It works through the whole list in the background, one document at a time, so you can carry on using the panel while it runs. Switch to page previews afterwards and they are all there at once instead of filling in as you watch. Ask again while it runs to stop it; whatever was built is kept. From Settings, the window stays open while it starts.
- A **Show page previews** box in the footer, beside Open. It turns the page beside the list on and off without going into Settings.
- A progress bar under the header while the list is read, with a count in the footer. Reading eighty documents off the disk takes a moment the first time, and the panel no longer just sits there.
- While a document is opening or being loaded into the cursor, the bar fills and the footer names the document. The panel cannot move while InDesign is busy with it, but it now says what it is waiting for.
- Every column can be resized, Name included, and dragging right always widens the column you took hold of. When the columns add up to more than the panel, the list scrolls sideways and the headings go with it.
Changed
- The panel is called **ZAFLO Recent Files** now, in the Window menu, in its own title bar and in every one of its windows.
- The gear icon opens the panel's menu instead of going straight to Settings. Settings is in it. Every other command used to be on the right mouse button only, where it was easy to miss.
- The Folder column shows the whole path when it has room. It used to show only the last two folders however wide it was; now it is trimmed from the beginning only as far as it has to be.
- **Show page previews** is the page beside the list and nothing else. Page previews in the grid and Build all page previews work whatever it says, and switching it off no longer throws the built previews away.
- Menu items that are on or off carry a real tick. A dot in front of **List** and **Preview pane** looked like a stray character; the item is now called **Show page previews**, the same as in Settings.
- The list is read in small portions with a pause between them, so the panel keeps answering while it works.
Fixed
- Page previews were missing on most documents. The panel read files by a route that quietly returns nothing for many paths, and an unread file looks exactly like a document with no preview in it. Files are now read by their path directly. Of the author's 82 documents, 79 carry a preview and all of them come through.
- With **Show page previews** unticked, the grid said "no preview" on every document, and kept saying it after the box was ticked again.
- Closing a document froze the panel for up to twenty seconds when the list held a document on a mapped network drive (a drive letter such as W:) whose server was not answering - most of all after closing a document whose links point at that server. Every drive but the system disk is now asked without holding the panel, and one that does not answer within two and a half seconds is left alone for a minute. Its documents show as not reachable.
- After loading a document into the cursor the panel no longer reads the whole list again. Placing makes InDesign open and close the document behind the scenes, and the panel took that for a change and refreshed while InDesign was still checking that document's links.
- The gear's menu opened at the far left of the panel - or, the first time, to the right of the gear and off the panel - and the right-click menu nowhere near the pointer. The gear's menu now hangs right under the gear, and the right-click menu opens at the pointer.
1.0.02026-09-21
- First release.
Added
- A list of your recent documents that keeps InDesign's own order, remembers it after InDesign is closed, and reaches further back than the Open Recent menu.
- Optional columns for the folder, when a document was opened, when it was last saved, which InDesign version saved it and its size. Drag a column edge to widen it, click a heading to sort by it.
- A preview of the selected document's page beside the list, and a grid view of first pages.
- Search by name and folder as you type.
- Colour marks for documents that are open right now and for files that are missing or on a drive that cannot be reached.
- Pin a document to the top of the list, or remove it until it is opened again.
- Open, open a copy, place into the active document, reveal in the folder, copy the path, and render a missing preview with InDesign, all on the right mouse button.
- Placing loads InDesign's cursor, so you click where the document goes. Dragging a row out of the panel does the same.
- Settings for colours, the starting view, panel size, which columns are shown and how many documents are kept (80 by default).
- Documents on network shares are found and shown like any other.
