Clean history (recent folder) in Android 5+ directory tree picker (ACTION_OPEN_DOCUMENT_TREE)

Question

Directory tree picker created by

Intent intent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_OPEN_DOCUMENT_TREE);
...

on Android 5+ saves all picked directories history to the Recent folder:

...

Is there a way how to erase this history?

Answer 1

The recents history is saved in a database which is located:

/data/data/com.android.documentsui/databases/recents.db

So it's not accessible to the other apps, unless the device is rooted.

There is a ContentProvider (RecentsProvider) that manages the database but unfortunately it isn't exported, so only applications that have the same user ID (UID) as the provider will have access to it [1].

There is also a BroadcastReceiver (PackageReceiver) that controls the ContentProvider and purge the recents but unfortunately it only receives ACTION_PACKAGE_FULLY_REMOVED[2] and ACTION_PACKAGE_DATA_CLEARED [3]. Both the intent are protected and they can only be sent by the system.

tl;dr Unfortunately you can't clean the recents. The only viable solution is to clear the whole data of Documents app, but in this case every settings will be lost.