SharePoint 2013 – Hiding Recent from the Navigation

In SharePoint 2013 there is a new feature. Every list that is added to the Current Navigation appears under a heading Recent.

I have seen quite a few JQuery/JavaScript solutions but why make things difficult?

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/sharepoint/en-US/b0b126fb-298b-469a-9a35-fb7abd50b997/sharepoint-2013-remove-recent-from-left-menu?forum=sharepointadmin

Simply add the following css:

#sideNavBox li > span
{
display: none;
}

And the recent heading disappears. This uses the idea that the Recent Heading doesn’t have a url set and therefore it contains the spans directly within the li element.

There is only one downside that I have seen so far and that other headings without a link will also disappear.

One important thing now to make your lists appear in the left hand navigation the Static display levels will need to be corrected I the master page used by your site. If you use a seatle.master based master page search for StaticDisplayLevels=”3″ and replace it withStaticDisplayLevels=”4″

Update: Recently I found an easier way of hiding the Recent option.

1. Create a SharePoint group “Nobody”
2. Go to Site Settings and Navigation
3. find the Recent item and click on Edit.
4. Now set the audience targeting to the Nobody group.

Pieter Veenstra

Is your business still running on paper trails, sprawling Excel files, or ageing Access databases? There's a better way — and I can show you exactly what it looks like. I'm the Technical Director of Vantage 365, a Microsoft solutions consultancy working with clients across the UK, the Netherlands, and worldwide. For over 30 years I've been turning messy, manual business processes into clean, automated systems that save time, reduce errors, and give teams the visibility they need to make better decisions. SharePains is not just any blog run by a Microsoft MVP. Have you ever used Try-Catch in Power Automate? The original post about Try-Catch in Power Automate can still be found on this site, https://sharepains.com/2018/02/07/try-catch-finally-in-power-automate-flow/ Or have you ever used the Pieter’s method to avoid variables and speed up your flows? https://sharepains.com/2020/03/11/pieters-method-for-advanced-in-flows/ You can contact me using contact@sharepains.com

Pieter Veenstra

Is your business still running on paper trails, sprawling Excel files, or ageing Access databases? There's a better way — and I can show you exactly what it looks like. I'm the Technical Director of Vantage 365, a Microsoft solutions consultancy working with clients across the UK, the Netherlands, and worldwide. For over 30 years I've been turning messy, manual business processes into clean, automated systems that save time, reduce errors, and give teams the visibility they need to make better decisions. SharePains is not just any blog run by a Microsoft MVP. Have you ever used Try-Catch in Power Automate? The original post about Try-Catch in Power Automate can still be found on this site, https://sharepains.com/2018/02/07/try-catch-finally-in-power-automate-flow/ Or have you ever used the Pieter’s method to avoid variables and speed up your flows? https://sharepains.com/2020/03/11/pieters-method-for-advanced-in-flows/ You can contact me using contact@sharepains.com