When I open a pdf in Preview, why do the last several pdf's I've opened show up also?

Question

Using Preview v 5.5.3, Mac OS 10.7.5:  whenever I open a PDF, the program also opens 5-10 other PDF's I've opened in the past.  How can I stop this?

Answer 1

You may have to use Disk Utility's 'repair disk permissions' to see if that helps.
The only time I'd found a similar issue was when I'd only clicked on the red dot
to close a window of an open application; so later, other windows opened.
Could be a minor issue; also be sure you fully quit the application after use.
Not sure the exact cause of this, in your circumstances. Sometimes odd
behavior can be fixed by simply starting up in SafeBoot. (shift key held on
startup, until desktop loads; takes awhile) This checks & does some repair
during this process, and then later on, you simply restart normal, to get the
Mac to be fully started and out of SafeBoot. I usually repair disk permissions
when it is in safeboot. The OS X is running in a reduced form in safeboot.
{some users note that there are times that you may have to enter your admin
or user password while booting in Safeboot; then resume holding shift key
until the process is completed. not sure why that would be}
Perhaps others may have insight as to what causes this; there may be a few
Console utility logs that may spew terminal lines of actions by time & date,
but I don't know what they mean. Other Console reports can include normal
underlying transactions between system software and other mysterious stuff.
Hopefully a simple restart can help the file issues in Preview.
Good luck & happy computing!