Purpose

Confluence 5.9 and above has a new dashboard:

Which is different than the old dashboards that are available in Confluence 5.8 and below, and does not include the Recently Updates tab that has a tab which only contains Recently Updated content from Favourite Spaces and Pages only:

Solution

Edit the Site welcome message and add the Updated Macro manually:

• Go to  > General Configuration > Global Templates and Blueprints.

• Scroll down to the System templates and choose Edit next to Default Welcome Message.

• Add the Recently Updated Dashboard Macro and save the page
  
  

You will see the tabs in the right side of the Dashboard now: