This tip comes to us courtesy of an OSXDaily reader. You can add a recent items menu to your Mac OS X dock by running a terminal command. The default is to show only recent applications, but you can adjust it later to show all other recent items.
To implement this, launch Terminal and inter the following code:
defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-others -array-add '{ "tile-data" = { "list-type" = 1; }; "tile-type" = "recents-tile"; }'
That needs to all be on a single line, so if you copy and paste it make sure the command is one string.
Then you’ll need to kill the Dock:
killall Dock
That’s all there is to it – at this point, you can now click on the item and change it to be either recent apps, recent documents, recent servers, favorite volumes, or favorite items.
Note: Using the terminal should only be done by users who understand and accept that doing so carries possible risks, and could damage your installation if you aren’t careful.
