I typically use ‘spotlight search’, and "finder’(bottom left-hand icon) and ‘recent items’ under the top left Apple icon. Necessary files I keep in named folders on my desktop.
OK, as his been explained previously, “Recent Items” is simply a “smart search” by the OS. Files are not “stored” there. It always pays to know where your files are actually stored in the file system. You can do a get-info on one of the files and see where it lives.