A family of Microsoft word processing software products for creating web, email, and print documents.
Hi JEFFREY BELMONT,
On Mac, the Recent list only keeps a reference to the file location. If that reference becomes outdated or corrupted, the file may not open from Recent even though it still opens normally from Finder.
You can try the steps below:
- Open the file directly from Finder. If it opens, then file itself is fine
- Rebuild the Recent entry: Open it from Finder, make a small change, save, then try again.
If the issue continues
- Quit Word entirely
- Go to
~/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Word/Data/Library/Preferences - Remove
com.microsoft.Word.securebookmarks.plist - Reopen Word and try again
This method resets the stored references and allows them to rebuild.
If your files are in OneDrive or iCloud, also make sure they are fully synced, as location changes can break Recent links.
Hope this helps a bit. If anything is unclear, feel free to share more details and I can take a closer look with you.