Windows 10 File History - backup your files!

Your documents, pictures, videos and other personal files are the most valuable thing you have on your computer. What if those files were destroyed? Perhaps your laptop's disk drive will die or you accidentally delete (and empty your recycle bin) an important file?

You need to backup your data. But that's boring right? You are tired, you don't want to continually mess around with complicated backup procedures? You don't need to!

Windows 10 has a great feature called File History. Periodically (you decide when) it copies your files to another drive. Best of all, it keeps versions of files. For example, update a file on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Later you realise that the change you made on Wednesday was a mistake. With File History you can restore the file from Monday or Tuesday. Because File History works in such a seamless and simple fashion, I recommend it.

File History is what I term a "file backup" tool. You shouldn't only have this backup, you should have other methods of backing up too if you want comprehensive protection against data loss. Please click here for more information.


File History Setup
Follow these steps just once per drive to set it up.

Plug-in a USB flash drive or other removable drive. I would recommend 16GB or more, so you have plenty of space available. Make sure the drive is blank, it would be a good idea to format it. You can format to FAT32 or NTFS, either will work.

NOTE: I have set up File History to use a Micro-SD card in my laptop. If you are thinking of doing this it is important to get the right Micro-SD card. Please click here for more information.



In the Windows search box enter "file history"

Click Restore your files with File History

If it's the first time you are using File History you'll see the following (or similar):

 
Click Configure File History

It'll search for a drive to use as the destination. It should see your USB drive - in the example below my USB flash drive is named HISTORY:

NOTE: If it doesn't select the correct drive or you have multiple, on far left click Select drive.

Click Turn on

Click Advanced settings (on the far left)

By default File History will back up your files every hour. You can change this to be more frequent if you wish.

Change the 'Keep saved versions' to Until space is needed

Multiple versions of files are backed up, when ‘Until space is needed’ is set, when the USB removable drive is full File History will automatically reclaim space by deleting the oldest backed up versions.

Click Save changes

Restore

In the search box enter "file history" and click Restore your files with File History. 

• It's easy to scroll back and forth through history to find your files by date. 
• Select a file to restore, click the green button - it will restore the file to its original location. 
• If you want to restore it elsewhere, right click on the green button and click Restore to, a Save As dialogue box will appear, you can select anywhere on your computer to save the restored file.  

NOTE: On this screen if you click the gear icon you can change the set up.

Reset File History

If you format your removable drive and therefore all your backed up files will be gone. But strangely you may see those files if you open File History, but they are just ghosts, they are just the old indexes of the files you used to have backed up. To turn off and reset File History completely, delete the following Configuration folder:

C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\FileHistory\Configuration

The next time you open File History Restore, it will again look for a new removable drive to use.

Considerations
File History will run automatically, there is little to manage. However, remember that when you remove the USB drive the backup will not work. File History works best when you leave the USB drive connected all the time. At the same time, if someone steals your laptop then your backup will be stolen with it. You can remove the USB drive. You can use two USB drives with File History and change them periodically. Keep one in a safe place perhaps. It's also worth considering using File History together with another backup solution, please see here for more help for this.

If you have large amounts of data then it is important to buy a large capacity USB drive. If your laptop has a specific USB 3 port, make sure the USB drive you buy works at USB 3 speed and use that port. Buy a large capacity USB drive to be sure you have enough space for all your backups and versions of files.


Encryption
By default File History will backup files without encryption. If you browse your USB drive you'll find all your files there, you can copy and paste them from the drive if you wish. This is an advantage in that you can very easily recover your files. However, it is a disadvantage if someone steals the USB drive. They will have access to your files!

If you are using Windows Home there's nothing you can do. Windows Home does not have BitLocker and therefore it cannot encrypt the USB drive.

If you are using Windows Professional you have the option to encrypt (password protect) your USB drive. Search for "bitlocker". It works with File History (both are built-in features of Windows 10).

Conclusion

File History works very nicely. The best part is that it's easy to set up and it just works on its own. Very little intervention or upkeep is required. It'll even just keep using your USB drive and recycling the space. 

Disclaimer
I've posted this article to help, it's just my opinion. I take no responsibility for any of your backups or your loss of data. I'm just trying to help out here by explaining this feature.


Related
I have written many other backup related articles, please see them here:
https://mgxp.blogspot.com/search/label/backup