<p>When I use Emacs I want to be able to easily display and navigate through a list of files I worked on from not just the current session but from previous sessions. (BTW, running Emacs 22.2 on Windows)</p>

[{'answer_id': 50422, 'author': 'Ben Collins', 'author_id': 3279, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/3279', 'pm_score': 6, 'selected': True, 'text': '<p>From <a href="http://www.joegrossberg.com/archives/000182.html" rel="noreferrer">Joe Grossberg</a>\'s blog (no longer available):</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n  <p>But if you\'re using GNU Emacs 21.2\n  (the latest version, which includes\n  this as part of the standard distro),\n  you can just put the following lines\n  into your .emacs file</p>\n\n<pre><code>;; recentf stuff\n(require \'recentf)\n(recentf-mode 1)\n(setq recentf-max-menu-items 25)\n(global-set-key "\\C-x\\ \\C-r" \'recentf-open-files)\n</code></pre>\n  \n  <p>Then, when you launch emacs, hit\n  <kbd>CTRL</kbd>-<kbd>X</kbd> <kbd>CTRL</kbd>-<kbd>R</kbd>. It will show a list of\n  the recently-opened files in a buffer.\n  Move the cursor to a line and press\n  <kbd>ENTER</kbd>. That will open the file in\n  question, and move it to the top of\n  your recent-file list.</p>\n  \n  <p>(Note: Emacs records file names.\n  Therefore, if you move or rename a\n  file outside of Emacs, it won\'t\n  automatically update the list. You\'ll\n  have to open the renamed file with the\n  normal <kbd>CTRL</kbd>-<kbd>X</kbd> <kbd>CTRL</kbd>-<kbd>F</kbd> method.)</p>\n  \n  <p>Jayakrishnan Varnam has a <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20021114012120/http://varnam.org/e-recentf.html" rel="noreferrer">page\n  including screenshots</a> of how this\n  package works.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p><em>Note:</em> You don\'t need the <code>(require \'recentf)</code> line.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 63917973, 'author': 'Glen Whitney', 'author_id': 5583443, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/5583443', 'pm_score': 2, 'selected': False, 'text': "<p>Even if you don't have recentf turned on, Emacs is saving a list of files entered via the minibuffer in the variable <code>file-name-history</code>. Also, executing <code>(savehist-mode 1)</code> in your <code>.emacs</code> file makes that variable persist across invocations of Emacs.</p>\n<p>So here's a little function that displays the files that actually exist from that list (anyone is welcome to use/build on this):</p>\n<pre><code>(defun dir-of-recent-files ()\n  &quot;See the list of recently entered files in a Dired buffer.&quot;\n  (interactive)\n  (dired (cons\n      &quot;*Recent Files*&quot;\n      (seq-filter\n       'file-exists-p\n       (delete-dups\n        (mapcar (lambda (s) (string-trim-right s &quot;/*&quot;))\n            file-name-history)\n        ))))\n  )\n</code></pre>\n<p>I find this quite useful and have it bound to one of those little special function keys on my desktop keyboard. (And so I have not seen the point of turning on recentf...)</p>\n"}]
['https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/50417', 'https://Stackoverflow.com', 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/4872/']