Documents showing in recent when not opened

I hope you can see my image but I looked at the properties and it clearly shows the file was modified in August and recently accessed today at 8am from my PC but that isn't the point. I didn't access this file or any of the other 10 or so files. It is creepy and weird that OneDrive (?) is accessing the my files. The only thing microsoft should be doing is backing them up to my one drive and not in small groups. Really need this bug fixed. Feels like someone keeps trying to find things on my computer. I am about to switch to a different platform if this continues.

Hello Gooba31,

Thank you for patiently waiting and truly apologized for some delay with my responses.

It appears that this is a bug with OneDrive app or the File Explorer itself. To have this properly investigated by our engineers, we will ask you to provide the version of OneDrive app and the version of Windows you are using.

To get the version of Windows, press Windows key + R and type winver in the run dialog box and hit enter.

To check the version of OneDrive you are using, open OneDrive settings (select the OneDrive cloud icon in your notification area, and then select the OneDrive Help and Settings icon  then Settings.) then go to the About tab to see the version number.

We look forward to your response. Kindly let us know, if there is any misunderstanding or clarifications of our description by sending us a reply.

Sincerely,

Tomm_A

I echo the last comment. This started for me just a few days ago and I can guarantee that the files have not been edited in years. Virtually all of the files in my recent list are now OneDrive files that have seen no activity for years - so the recent list is useless now. This seems to pretty obviously be a new bug in either OneDrive or the File Manager so that when OneDrive checks to see if a file has changed a bit somewhere is flipping causing this to show up in the Recent File list.

Is it possible that a newly installed app is accessing all of my OneDrive files - I guess -and if so I'd like to know what that is. I have two OneDrive instances running. One personal and one corporate.

Test:

• I open a file in the recent list to look at it. It jumps to the top of the list.
• 5 or 10 seconds later another dozen OneDrive files have jumped to the top of the recent list - these are from either of my OneDrive instances
• the very top of the list shows a date-time of now but if I view the file in its source folder in File Manager it shows an edited date in 2022
• I pause my personal OneDrive syncing
• the behavior stops completely. It no longer adds new OneDrive files to the recent list
• I resume my personal OneDrive syncing
• all of my corporate OneDrive files that were in the recent list have disappeared from the list and the adding-files behavior is still stopped

It's very broken. It seems pausing-resyncing stops this behavior at least for a while but that's not right.

Hello Gooba31,

Thank you for getting back with the thread and truly appreciate for the clarification.

It seems odd that documents appear in recent even if the documents were not open. To check if someone really is trying to access the documents, we can check it by identifying who made the last recent changes. To do this follow the steps below:

1. Open File Explorer and navigate to the folder that contains the document.
2. Right-click on the document and select “Properties” from the context menu.
3. In the Properties window, click on the “Details” tab.
4. Scroll down to the “Origin” section to view the “Last saved by” field. This field displays the name of the person who made the last changes to the document.

If the “Last saved by” field is blank or displays an incorrect name, it’s possible that the document was saved with a different name or that the file properties have been modified.

If you think that someone has access to your OneDrive files, you can change the password of your Microsoft account immediately or make your account safe and secure by following the recommendation provided in this link: How to help keep your Microsoft account safe and secure - Microsoft Support

We look forward to your response. Kindly let us know, if there is any misunderstanding or clarifications of our description by sending us a reply.

 

Sincerely,

Tomm_A

Dear MS Agent Tomm_A,

With all due respect, please can I ask you to try to understand the issue submitted by the original poster.

The two solutions you have offered do not address the actual problem.

We are not asking who is making changes to these documents, we are asking if they are being opened by unauthorised people.

If the list of 'Recent' opened files in File Explorer is indicating that docs have been accessed (not modified) by unknown people then that is the concern.

Your suggestion of trying to find out who last made changes to a document will not reveal who is simply opening and viewing these documents.

May I politely request that this issue is escalated so that we can get a definitive answer that homes in on the issue.

My hunch is that this phenomenon my have something to do with OneDrive. Perhaps some kind of automatic syncing of random documents to OneDrive registers those documents as recently accessed?

I hope someone at MS can come back with a simple and reliable explanation so that our minds can be put at rest.

Many thanks.

Hello Gooba31,

Thank you for getting back with the thread and truly appreciate for the clarification.

It seems odd that documents appear in recent even if the documents were not open. To check if someone really is trying to access the documents, we can check it by identifying who made the last recent changes. To do this follow the steps below:

1. Open File Explorer and navigate to the folder that contains the document.
2. Right-click on the document and select “Properties” from the context menu.
3. In the Properties window, click on the “Details” tab.
4. Scroll down to the “Origin” section to view the “Last saved by” field. This field displays the name of the person who made the last changes to the document.

If the “Last saved by” field is blank or displays an incorrect name, it’s possible that the document was saved with a different name or that the file properties have been modified.

If you think that someone has access to your OneDrive files, you can change the password of your Microsoft account immediately or make your account safe and secure by following the recommendation provided in this link: How to help keep your Microsoft account safe and secure - Microsoft Support

We look forward to your response. Kindly let us know, if there is any misunderstanding or clarifications of our description by sending us a reply.

Sincerely,

Tomm_A