Cannot Clear Activities from Task View

[Judesman]

I have discovered that only some of the activities in Task View will delete. This is not through CCleaner but by own manual operation. Most of the deleted activities remain in a silhouette/transparent form and cannot be deleted at all. I have trawled the net but cannot find a satisfactory solution. Does anyone else have this problem and is there any way CCleaner will remove these activities?  Win 10 V. 1909.  Any help please?

[nukecad]

Did your searching find this suggestion?
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/greyed-out-files-on-windows-10-timeline-cant-be/3cbe66cd-83bb-4406-be3e-72bae08b33d8

It seems to be what you are looking for, I don't use Task View/Timeline myself so can't verify if it works.

It may be worth reading the rest of the answers as well.

[Judesman]

Many thanks.  I hadn't seen this but another version of similar advice. The problem is that when I found ActivitiesCache.db it wasn't a folder but a single file so I didn't know how to delete the files in a folder that didn't exist. I thought that it would be wiser to leave well alone.

[nukecad]

You could try renaming it, say from .db to .bak, (or moving it into a different folder say your documents) and seeing if that fixes your issue?

That way you can always put it back again if needed.

[Judesman]

Reading the entire thread, it suggests that there are three files that need to be deleted. As you say I could move them to a separate folder and see what happens and if necessary move them back again. If, following this operation the history will start recording again, I assume that means that the files are re-created. I am amazed that after this length of time Microsoft hasn't done something about this.

[nukecad]

After renaming or moving the file(s) then you probably need a restart to clear the timeline already in memory, and yes Windows will create a new, empty, timeline and file(s).

Like I said I never use the timeline, or the Task View, when it first came along I could see that it might be useful for some but I didn't want MS saving what I'd been doing so they could snoop on it later, and you can open/close/minimise things you are working on anyway, so I don't realy see the point of Task View it's just another way of doing things.

[Judesman]

I quite agree and it wasn't until I looked in Task View and tried to delete the files that I realised there was a problem. To make matters worse I now see that I have two  folders with the same Activities Cache files in. I think I might copy them into Docs and delete and see what happens.  I hate technology and Microsoft doesn't seem to pick up these things.  Thanks for you input.

[nukecad]

4 hours ago, Judesman said:

I now see that I have two  folders with the same Activities Cache files in.

Again I'm guessing but that may be because you have both 'Store my activity on this device' and 'Send my activity history to Microsoft' ticked in Settings>Privacy>Activity history?

(I recall that One Drive would also use two folders, one for local storage and one for syncing. - OD is another MS 'inovation' that I quickly disabled).

[Judesman]

I wonder which is which if that is the case.  When I am feeling brave I will have a go.

I used One Drive a couple of times but don't think it is very straightforward.

Thanks for your thoughts.