How to Remove Recently Used Images from Windows Desktop Background History
Works for windows 10 and 11 that I know of. I haven't tried it in any other OS.
One way is:
To remove a background history image, you’ll need to select and apply new wallpapers again 5 times and it’ll replace previous 5 images with the new images in background history.
If you want to remove recently used images from Desktop background history in regedit, following steps will help you:
Be aware you could completely kill your computer in regedit if you don't know what you are doing! I know I have done it before!
1. Press WIN+R keys at the same time to launch the RUN dialog box. Now type regedit in the RUN box and press Enter. It will open the Registry Editor.
2. Now navigate to following key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Wallpapers
3. In right-side pane, you’ll see following 5 strings:
a. BackgroundHistoryPath0
b. BackgroundHistoryPath1
c. BackgroundHistoryPath2
d. BackgroundHistoryPath3
e. BackgroundHistoryPath4
Each string’s value data field contains full image path of the recently used images which are shown in background history section of Settings app.
4. To remove any particular image from background history, delete the associated string from Registry.
To clear all 5 images from background history, delete all 5 above mentioned strings.