Whenever you set your desktop's background image, Windows stores a thumbnail of that epitome in the background history. This is where yous will come across the concluding five images that were used equally a background, even if you accidentally clicked on the wrong image while browsing. With a few simple Registry edits, yous tin can remove ane or all of them and start from a make clean country.

Clear Recently Used Background Images past Editing the Registry Manually

If you've accidentally added an image as a background and want to become rid of it, you lot tin can't simply correct-click the image and delete it. Sure, y'all could add five more than different images, simply using this Registry edit is a lot easier to do.

Standard Warning: Registry Editor is a powerful tool and misusing it can return your system unstable or even inoperable. This is a pretty simple hack, and as long as you stick to the instructions, you shouldn't have any problems. That said, if y'all've never worked with it before, consider reading nearly how to utilise the Registry Editor before you go started. And definitely back up the Registry (and your computer!) before making changes.

Open the Registry Editor by hitting Beginning and typing "regedit." Printing Enter to open up the Registry Editor and and so give information technology permission to make changes to your PC.

In the Registry Editor, use the left sidebar to navigate to the following key (or copy and paste it into the Registry Editor address bar):

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Wallpapers

After opening the Wallpapers key, yous'll meet a bunch of values on the right side. The just ones we're interested have names starting withBackgroundHistoryPath, followed by the numbers 0-4. These values point where to discover the last v images used for your background.

At present, depending on which image(due south) you lot desire to delete you lot can delete ane or all of them here by right-clicking a value—0 being the starting time image and 4 being the fifth—so choosing "Delete" from the context menu. You tin also delete multiple images at once like we're doing in our example. After deleting them, Windows will prompt you to confirm that y'all want to brand changes to your Registry.

Whenever yous delete anything from the history, Windows automatically rebuilds these values again and populates them with its default wallpapers.

When you lot're done, you can close Registry Editor. You lot'll need to close the Settings app if you had it open in order for the history to refresh. If that doesn't work, and so you will demand to sign out and sign dorsum into Windows (or just restart Windows Explorer) for the changes to take effect.

Download Our One-Click Registry Hack

If you don't feel similar diving into the Registry yourself, nosotros've created a registry hack y'all can use. But download and extract the following Nothing file:

Remove Background History Images

Inside you lot'll notice one file that will remove the valuesBackgroundHistoryPath0-four from the Wallpapers key in the Registry, deleting all your background history thumbnails. Once it's extracted, double-click the file, and accept the prompts asking whether yous're sure you lot want to make changes to your Registry.

These hacks are really only removing theBackgroundHistoryPath values we talked about in the previous section, and and so exported to a .REG file. Running the hacks just modifies the value in your Registry. And if you relish petty with the Registry, it's worth taking the time to learn how to make your own Registry hacks.

RELATED: How to Make Your Own Windows Registry Hacks