Tip: How to clear/clean your history in Directory Opus

I thought this might be helpful for others...

You can remove all traces of your history by removing the following files:

C:\Users\[User Name]\AppData\Local\GPSoftware\Directory Opus\State Data\dupe.osd
C:\Users\[User Name]\AppData\Local\GPSoftware\Directory Opus\State Data\find.osd
C:\Users\[User Name]\AppData\Local\GPSoftware\Directory Opus\State Data\ftplast.osd
C:\Users\[User Name]\AppData\Local\GPSoftware\Directory Opus\State Data\lastrename.osd
C:\Users\[User Name]\AppData\Local\GPSoftware\Directory Opus\State Data\sync.osd
C:\Users\[User Name]\AppData\Local\GPSoftware\Directory Opus\State Data\MRU\*.*

To do that in a batch file, you can save the following code into a text file named dopus_clean_history.bat and then double click it. Make sure the path to Directory Opus matches your path.

@echo off

REM *** Close Directory Opus and DOpusRT.exe ***
"C:\Program Files\GPSoftware\Directory Opus\DOpusRT.exe" /CMD Close PROGRAM
"C:\Program Files\GPSoftware\Directory Opus\DOpusRT.exe" /dblclk=off

REM *** Pause for 3 seconds ***
ping 1.1.1.1 -n 1 -w 3000 > nul

REM *** Delete the history files ***
del /F /Q "%userprofile%\AppData\Local\GPSoftware\Directory Opus\State Data\dupe.osd"
del /F /Q "%userprofile%\AppData\Local\GPSoftware\Directory Opus\State Data\find.osd"
del /F /Q "%userprofile%\AppData\Local\GPSoftware\Directory Opus\State Data\ftplast.osd"
del /F /Q "%userprofile%\AppData\Local\GPSoftware\Directory Opus\State Data\lastrename.osd"
del /F /Q "%userprofile%\AppData\Local\GPSoftware\Directory Opus\State Data\sync.osd"
del /F /Q  /S "%userprofile%\AppData\Local\GPSoftware\Directory Opus\State Data\MRU\*.*"

echo "Directory Opus history has been deleted."

I hope that Directory Opus can add a "Clear History" menu item or option in future versions.

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It better to use
"%LOCALAPPDATA%\GPSoftware\Directory Opus\State Data" than to use
"C:\Users[User Name]\AppData\Local"

Since the latter you have to change it per user, changed of username or reformat of OS install.

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Sorry to kick this topic up, but are the files and folder specified by the topic starter still valid?
Or are there other files/folders that need to be deleted to clean the history.

EDIT:
Can "recent.osd" might also be deleted to clear history?

I wanted to clear the items below in the favorites list (when you click the star icon), I thought they where history related items.
But when clicking on the star icon (favorites) and then "Edit Favorites" and then disabling "Smart Favorites", the below items where finally gone. (I might have accidentally enabled "Smart Favorites" when going through the settings menu).
I thought I just put it here for other other beginners.

From a quick look, they're still valid.

That depends what you want to clear.

You can see there are lots of other config files in the config folders. Almost all are in text/xml format so you can open them in Notepad to see the kind of data they contain and if you'd like to clear it. Or if there's a particular thing you want to clear (e.g. the name of a folder) you could do a contents search to find all config files containing that item.

Everything under the /dopuslocaldata folder is non-essential and can be deleted if you wish. You may lose window positions or remembered checkbox states in some dialogs for doing things, but not any actual Preferences settings.

Under the /dopusdata folder are things that are typically saved explicitly, rather than implicitly, but there may still be things there you want to clear out at some point. Most of them can be managed via the Preferences UI or similar, however, so you would not normally need to edit/delete most of the things in there by hand.

These guides talk more about the config folders and the files within them:

It contains recently visited folders. It can be deleted if you want to clear those.

You can also turn off the recent list under Preferences / Favorites and Recent / Recent List to stop them being saved.


Edit 2024: For people finding this thread, Opus 13 has Preferences / Miscellaneous / Privacy.

1 Like

Thank you very much for this!