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I'm writing a small tool to help my workflow as an artist, and it'd be neat if it could check a list of recently accessed files on my computer for a *.psd (photoshop) file. The last file of this type is always the one I'd like to read, so it works out well.

Does Windows 10 allow me to see a list of paths to my computer's most recently accessed files, which I might leverage through C++?

(I'd never ask for this kind of feature as a dev, it seems like a huge privacy issue when the dev and user are not the same person... But if it's there I may as well use it.)

Anne Quinn
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  • *Does Windows 10 allow me to see a list of paths to my computer's most recently accessed files,* -- Do you know of any application or existing utility that does this? That's one way you can get a good idea of whether it is possible or not. – PaulMcKenzie May 14 '22 at 02:00
  • @PaulMcKenzie - Now that you mention it, I guess I don't know of any that does even though it'd be advantageous in their use-case, so perhaps not. – Anne Quinn May 14 '22 at 02:20
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    You can `FindFirstFile` and friends to walk a volume. The access time might not be usable. Modified time is. – Anders May 14 '22 at 02:59
  • @anders - Thanks, I'm trying something like this, though narrowing the space way down by specifying a directory first, and using `std::filesystem::recursive_directory_iterator` and `std::filesystem::last_write_time` to brute force it – Anne Quinn May 14 '22 at 05:20
  • If you are willing to consider C#, you could refer to this [issue](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4569862/how-to-get-a-list-of-recent-documents-in-windows-7). – Yujian Yao - MSFT May 17 '22 at 08:34

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