Configure File History (Windows 10)


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Windows 10 includes a lot of helpful features to recover your files or restore your entire system. One feature you might not be aware of is called File History. Here’s a look at what it is, how to turn it on, and use it.

What is File History in Windows 10?

File History is a built-in tool that was first introduced in Windows 8 and it allows you to recover files you might have accidentally deleted, or restore a modified document to an earlier version. It’s essentially like Apple’s Time Machine in OS X but for Windows.

To use it, you’ll need an external hard drive or a large capacity USB flash drive. You can set it up to use a network location, too. File History will automatically back up Favorites, Contacts, Desktop items, and more.

All of this data can add up in a hurry, but you can configure File History to exclude certain folders and how often it saves copies of files.

Turn on and Configure File History

File History is turned off by default, so to get things rolling, connect your external drive. Then type: file history into the Cortana powered search box and hit Enter or select it from the results at the top.

Configure File History (Windows 10)

Once it opens it will search for your connected drive and click to turn it on.

Configure File History (Windows 10)

Next you’ll get the message that File History is saving copies of your files for the first time.

Configure File History (Windows 10)

Configure File History

To go in and customize File History, click on Advanced settings in the right column.

Configure File History (Windows 10)

Now you can set how often File history backs up your files, how long versions are saved, set up HomeGroup settings (if you use it), and check out the history logs.

Configure File History (Windows 10)

Using a Network Location with File History

As we mentioned previously, you can use a network location for it as well. Maybe you have a home server or NAS that you want to use. Setting that up is relatively easy, too.

Click on Select drive in the right panel and from there you can add a network location, and even have your network shares show up in the selection area.

Configure File History (Windows 10)

Recover Files

External HDD or Drive

To restore files from your external drive, open the Settings app, select “Update & security”, select “Backup”, select “More options”, scroll down to the bottom of the window, and select “Restore files from a current backup”.

You can also open the Control Panel, select “System and Security”, select “File History”, and click “Restore personal files”.

If you have File History backups you created on another computer, just set up File History on the new computer and select the drive containing your old File History backups. They’ll then appear in the Restore Files interface so you can restore files, just as you could if the backup was created on the current computer.

This interface will allow you to view your backups and restore files. Browse the available files and select one or more files or folders. You can preview them by right-clicking them or select them and click the green button to restore them to your computer.

After you replace a failed Windows system drive or install Windows on a brand new SSD, you need to reconfigure File History to restore your files and folders. The same applies if you reset Windows or buy a new Windows device.

Please note that if you clone (transfer all files and folders) a system drive, you do not need to set up File History anew.

First, connect your File History drive, open Control Panel and start File History. Use the Control Panel's Search box on the top right if you cannot find the item.

Second, enable the I want to use a previous backup on this File History drive option. If Windows 8/8.1 or 10 detects a folder named FileHistory on the drive, this check box is automatically ticked. To add existing backups to File History on current PC, click to activate one of the available items in the Select an existing backup list.

Configure File History (Windows 10)

Internal HDD or Volume

If you need to recover a file or directory stored on a local drive (not cloud storage), launch File History and select Restore personal files.

Configure File History (Windows 10)

Or the easier way to access it is via the Ribbon in File Explorer by clicking the History button.

Configure File History (Windows 10)

Then you can go back in time and select different versions of files you need and click the green Restore button — which allows you to restore complete folders of files.

Configure File History (Windows 10)

Or, you can right-click a file and select Properties. Then from there select the Previous Versions tab and select the one you need. This is a good way to grab an individual document you made changes to, but want a previous draft instead.

Configure File History (Windows 10)

Clean Up File History

After a while, depending on the drive size, and your configured settings, you might get a notification that you need to free up space on your File History drive.

Configure File History (Windows 10)

If you get that message, go into File History advanced settings and select Clean up versions and choose how far back you want to delete folders and files.

Configure File History (Windows 10)

Restore Files From Within File Explorer

You can also quickly restore a previous version of a file from File Explorer. Open File Explorer, right-click the file you want to revert, and click “Restore previous versions”. You can also click “Properties” and then select the “Previous Versions” tab.

Configure File History (Windows 10)

Any available previous versions of the file from File History will be available here. You can preview them, restore one to its original location, or restore a previous version to a different location on your computer.

Configure File History (Windows 10)

You can also view previous versions and deleted files that were in a specific folder. To do this, navigate to the folder in File Explorer, click the “Home” tab on the ribbon bar at the top of the window, and click “History”.

Configure File History (Windows 10)

You’ll be presented with a list of files you can restore that were once in the folder. This is the same interface you’d use when restoring files normally, but File Explorer allows you to start from within a specific folder to speed things up.

Configure File History (Windows 10)

Restoring items to an alternate location for comparison

If you want to restore a previous version of an existing file or folder, it is best to recover it to a different folder to avoid accidental overwrites.

In Windows 8, 8.1 File History browser, select the item(s) you want to restore, right-click and select Restore to from the menu. In Windows 10, use the cogwheel button on the top right to choose the Restore to command.

Configure File History (Windows 10)

Restore to window opens. Browse to the empty folder or create one. Then click Select Folder.

Configure File History (Windows 10)

FhManagew.exe

The FhManagew.exe program deletes file versions that exceed a specified age from the currently assigned File History target device. This program is available in Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 and later.

To execute this program, go to the Start menu, click Run, and type the following command:

FhManagew.exe -cleanup age

The age parameter specifies the minimum age, in days, of file versions that can be deleted. A file version is deleted if both of the following conditions are true:

  • The file version is older than the specified age.
  • The file is no longer included in the protection scope, or there is a newer version of the same file on the target device.

If the age parameter is set to zero, all file versions are deleted, except for the newest version of each file that is currently present in the protection scope.

To suppress all output from this program, use the -quiet command-line option as follows:

FhManagew.exe -cleanup age -quiet