diff --git a/Lib/idlelib/EditorWindow.py b/Lib/idlelib/EditorWindow.py
index 344f35d84a0..6bdcecc3da9 100644
--- a/Lib/idlelib/EditorWindow.py
+++ b/Lib/idlelib/EditorWindow.py
@@ -860,7 +860,7 @@ class EditorWindow(object):
         # for each edit window instance, construct the recent files menu
         for instance in self.top.instance_dict:
             menu = instance.recent_files_menu
-            menu.delete(1, END)  # clear, and rebuild:
+            menu.delete(0, END)  # clear, and rebuild:
             for i, file_name in enumerate(rf_list):
                 file_name = file_name.rstrip()  # zap \n
                 # make unicode string to display non-ASCII chars correctly
diff --git a/Misc/NEWS b/Misc/NEWS
index 6a01d3eccd2..5310bfa259d 100644
--- a/Misc/NEWS
+++ b/Misc/NEWS
@@ -60,6 +60,8 @@ Core and Builtins
 Library
 -------
 
+- Issue #10997: Prevent a duplicate entry in IDLE's "Recent Files" menu.
+
 - Issue #14443: Tell rpmbuild to use the correct version of Python in
   bdist_rpm. Initial patch by Ross Lagerwall.