How to Use Recent Documents Web Part in SharePoint Online

In this SharePoint online tutorial, we will discuss everything about the Recent Documents Web Part in SharePoint Online.

And also, we will see how to add a recent documents web part to the SharePoint site page with various examples.

Also, Read: How to Use Page Properties Web Part in SharePoint Online

Recent Documents Web Part in SharePoint Online

Before finding out how to add the Recent documents web part to the SharePoint online site page, let us know some of the points related to this Recent Documents web part and what is its role in the SharePoint Site page.

• The SharePoint Online Recent Documents Web Part will show up all the recently opened and uploaded documents, files, Excel sheets and Word documents.
• Suppose, I have a SharePoint Document Library named “Mercy Information Documents“. This library has different types of files, folders, images, etc. Now I would like to display all these documents or files using a SharePoint Online Recent documents Web Part.
• It will display all the recently added documents at the entire tenant level of the organization.
• It only shows recent documents uploaded or viewed by the current users.
• For example: If we have the SharePoint site i.e.,(Mercy Hospitals) and we have added recent documents web part to this page. If another user from another SharePoint site i.e., (Rena Technologies) has permission to open the site (Mercy Hospitals) and upload a document, then the uploaded document will not be shown in the recent documents web part (Mercy Hospitals).
• We can also select the maximum number of documents that can be displayed in the SharePoint Online Recent documents web part.
• The maximum number of documents to display in the recent documents web part of SharePoint is 500.

Check Out: How to Use Bing Maps Web Part in SharePoint Online

Add Recent Documents Web Part to SharePoint Online

We have a SharePoint modern site page i.e., (Mercy Hospitals) with different web parts. Now lets add recent documents web part to it.

To add a recent document web part of SharePoint, follow the below instructions:

• Open the SharePoint online site page -> Click on the Edit icon at the right top of the page as shown below:

• Now click the (+) symbol on the left side of the page to add sections options like the below:
  • Select column sections according to your requirements. Here, we have taken One column.

• Next, hover the mouse above or below an existing web part or under the title region (Click on the + circled icon and Add a new web part in column one).

• Choose the Recent documents web part under the All section.

• Now, the SharePoint Online Recent documents web part will add to the Site page. We can view all the recent documents available on this web part.
• Also, we can provide the Name (Recent documents) to the Recent Documents web part.
• If we click the See all link (from the right-top), we can view all the recent documents from the specific location either from SharePoint library, OneDrive or Microsoft Apps, and so on.

This is how to add the Recent documents web part to the modern SharePoint site.

Edit Recent Documents Web Part in SharePoint Online

• To edit the SharePoint Online Recent Document Web part, click on the Edit icon from the web part itself.
• Then a Recent documents properties pane will display on the right side of the page as below.
• As we know before that we can add the documents within 500, above 500 is not possible. If we enter 520, it displays an error like “Number of items must be between 1 and 500“.

• Suppose, if we restrict to a display of only three documents in the Maximum number of documents to show in the property pane, it will only show the documents that are recently uploaded or opened:

• Once it is done, click on Republish at the top right side of the SharePoint page, and then it will save the updated changes and one can view all the recent documents from see all option as shown below :

This is how to display the selected number of recent documents on the SharePoint Online Recent documents web part.

Have a look: How to Use Call To Action Web Part in SharePoint Online

Along with these, we can also Move, Duplicate and Delete Recent documents web part from the SharePoint page. To edit the above changes follow the below sections:

Move Recent Documents Web Part in SharePoint Online

Now, let us see how to move or shuffle the Recent document web part in SharePoint online site page.

• If we want to move the recent documents web part in the SharePoint site page, then click on the Move icon drag and drop the web part wherever required.

This is how to move the Recent document web part on SharePoint online.

Duplicate Recent Documents Web Part in SharePoint Online

Next, we will look at how to duplicate the Recent document web part on SharePoint online.

• Select the Duplicate web part icon of the recent documents web part.
• Then it will add another copy of the recent documents web part to the SharePoint site page as shown in the below screenshot :

This is how to Duplicate the Recent document web part in SharePoint online.

Delete Recent Documents Web Part in SharePoint Online

Similarly, we will see the third feature i.e., how to delete the Recent documents web part in SharePoint online site page.

• If we wanted to delete the recent documents web part, Click on the Delete web part icon, then it will delete SharePoint Recent documents web part as shown in the below screenshot :

• Even though if we delete SharePoint Online Recent documents web part, the duplicated web part will still remain the same. It doesn’t get deleted from the SharePoint site page

This is how to edit, move, duplicate and delete the SharePoint online Recent documents web part.

Additionally, you may like some more SharePoint tutorials:

• Co-authoring documents in SharePoint Online
• SharePoint Online List Properties Web part
• How to Use People Web Part in SharePoint Online

Conclusion

From this SharePoint Online tutorial, we have learned the SharePoint Online Recent documents web part along with the following topics such as:

• Recent Documents Web Part in SharePoint Online
• Add a Recent Documents Web Part to the SharePoint Online
• Edit Recent Documents Web Part of SharePoint Online Site
• Move Recent Documents Web Part in SharePoint Online
• Duplicate Recent Documents Web Part in SharePoint Online
• Delete Recent Documents Web Part in SharePoint Online