Windows and macOS provide easy access to a list of recent documents opened by the application via JumpList or dock menu, respectively.
JumpList:
Application dock menu:
To add a file to recent documents, you can use the app.addRecentDocument API:
const { app } = require('electron')
app.addRecentDocument('/Users/USERNAME/Desktop/work.type')And you can use app.clearRecentDocuments API to empty the recent documents list:
const { app } = require('electron')
app.clearRecentDocuments()In order to be able to use this feature on Windows, your application has to be registered as a handler of the file type of the document, otherwise the file won't appear in JumpList even after you have added it. You can find everything on registering your application in [Application Registration][app-registration].
When a user clicks a file from the JumpList, a new instance of your application will be started with the path of the file added as a command line argument.
When a file is requested from the recent documents menu, the open-file event
of app module will be emitted for it.