Jump Lists: One of the most underused features of Windows 7 through 10

Jump Lists are a feature which first appeared in Windows 7, and have been carried over to Windows 8 and Windows 10. They are one of our favorite features, but hardly anyone knows they exist.

Jump Lists are handy because they show recently used files for an application or tasks related to that application, and let you access them quickly. Jump Lists can be accessed by right-clicking on an application’s icon in the Windows task bar.

There’s another way to access Jump Lists too. As with most things in Windows there are always 2, 3 or more ways to accomplish the same result. Jump Lists can also be accessed by left clicking an application icon while holding down the right- mouse button and dragging the icon upwards. You’ll notice that the more you drag icon upwards the less transparent the Jump List becomes. Whether you right-click to access your applications Jump List, or your left-click and hold down the right mouse button while dragging the application’s icon upwards, Jump Lists are a great way to access the most recent tasks you’ve performed with an application. If you access your browser’s Jump List, you can see your most recently viewed pages and pin the pages you most often visit — a great way to go straight to your favorite page or pages, without opening your browser first.

Above: Jump list for MetaPad (a text editor) on Windows 7

Above: Jump list for Google Chrome running on Windows 8.1

And if you want an item, or items, to appear permanently on your Jump Lists, drag those items to the top, and you can pin them to the applications Jump List. See the image below:

Jump list for NotePad in Windows 7 showing pinned items at the top.

Jump list for Google Chrome on Windows 8.1 showing pinned page at the top

Note the items I’ve dragged to the top appear under the “Pinned” heading, while the other items appear under “Recent” or, in the case of the browser, “Most visited”.