Stop Preview and Word reopening every old file

You reboot after a crash, open Preview, and a dozen PDFs you finished with last week cascade across the screen — then Word does the same with every document you'd closed. It's macOS's window restoration trying to be helpful, and for document apps it turns a fresh start into cleanup duty. The fix is one system setting for the native apps, plus knowing why Microsoft apps behave differently.

Why document apps flood back

Native macOS apps — Preview, TextEdit, Pages, Numbers, QuickTime — use a feature called Resume. Each time they quit, they record which documents were open so they can reopen them next launch. A crash or forced restart is the worst case: the apps never got a clean quit, so on relaunch macOS restores whatever was on screen at the moment things went wrong, which is often far more files than you'd ever reopen on purpose. Switching Resume off makes these apps launch to nothing, and you open the one file you actually want.

Stop Preview and other native apps

One setting covers every app that respects Resume, Preview included. The label is worded backwards — "close windows on quit" is exactly "don't reopen documents on launch":

1. Open System Settings → Desktop & Dock.
2. Scroll to the Windows section.
3. Turn on Close windows when quitting an application.

Now Preview, TextEdit, and the rest open empty instead of dumping your file history on you. It's the same toggle on macOS 13 Ventura, 14 Sonoma, and 15 Sequoia. The one-line Terminal version:

# Native apps open empty instead of restoring their last documents
defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSQuitAlwaysKeepsWindows -bool false

# Undo — reopen documents on launch again
defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSQuitAlwaysKeepsWindows -bool true

It takes effect for apps you quit after running it, so log out and back in once and Preview will open clean from then on. No killall required.

Why Word needs its own fix

Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint don't use Apple's Resume system, so the macOS setting above won't govern them. When Word floods back with files after a crash, that's its own AutoRecover and reopening behavior, managed inside the app rather than in System Settings. If Word keeps restoring documents, look in Word → Settings → Save and Word → Settings → General for its recovery and start-up options — and when a recovery pane appears after a crash, close the documents you don't want rather than leaving them for next launch. It's a separate switch from the macOS one, which is exactly why fixing Preview alone doesn't quiet Word.

Don't let a restart undo it

One more habit closes the loop. When you restart or shut down from the Apple menu, the dialog offers Reopen windows when logging back in. Leaving it unchecked means a deliberate reboot won't relaunch your document apps and repaint their files — helpful after a crash, when you want to come back to a calm desktop rather than the scene you crashed out of.

Tidy the trail files leave behind

Even with windows gone, "Open Recent" lists still keep the names of everything you touched. See how to clear recent items on Mac to wipe those lists once the reopening itself is handled.