How to Set Up and Configure File History in Windows 10, 8 📝📁💻

👍 Watch how to use File History in Windows 10. File History is probably the main function used to backup and restore data in this version of Windows operating system. In spite of its name, File History is not just a method to restore previous versions of files, but a full-fledged tool to back up your data.

Unlike complex backup tools, File History is very easy to enable. First of all, connect an external hard disk to the computer (you can also connect a flash drive or a memory card, if you need File History enabled for relatively small files and folders; a network folder can be used, too, if you have any). For example, I will use a 16 Gb flash drive. Now click on the Start menu, go to Settings / Update and Security / Backup. In the next window, click “Add a drive” and select the media you need (in my case, it is a USB drive). After that, the File History function will be enabled, and Windows will automatically create a backup of your files on the indicated drive when it is connected to your computer. In order to adjust File History settings, click on “More options.” The default setting is that backup is performed “Every hour” and the files are kept “Forever.” These settings can be changed as you wish, for example, to “Every 3 hours” and “Keep 1 year.” You can also force backup to run right now by clicking on “Backup now.” File History only creates copies of the files stored in such folders as Pictures, Music, Videos, Documents and Desktop, and files from OneDrive which are available offline (in the latest Windows 10 versions all these are folders found in the user account folder — in my case, this is the folder “Andrey Revchyk”). In order to add another folder, click on “Add a folder” to select the necessary directory (for example, “Test” folder), and click on “Choose this folder” to make the system back it up. Similarly, you can take away a folder you don’t need to backup with the option “Exclude these folders.” You can also click on “Add a folder,” select the folder “Music,” click “Choose this folder” and Windows will no longer back it up. If you want to change the drive where File History will be saved, click on “Stop using drive” but the data will not be deleted from there. After that, select the necessary drive, just as I did in the beginning of this video (it is because Windows can only work with one drive to save File History). However, there are more settings to see. Click on Related settings / See advanced settings and get to the Control Panel window. After that, select “Advanced settings.” In this settings window, we can also change file saving options; clean old versions of files and folders older than one, three, six months and so on; offer other computers of a group (if your PC belongs to a group) to create file history on your drive, and you can also open file history event logs to view recent events or errors. Now let’s see how you can restore files using File History. For example, I accidentally deleted the folder “Test” containing an important file named “File Test” by using Shift + Delete. In order to restore it, go to the Start menu / Settings / Update and Security / Backup, click on “More options” and select “Related settings” to click on “Restore files from a current backup.” In the next window, choose the files and folders you need (in my case, they are “Test” folder and “File test” file). You can also view all previous versions of this file (for demonstration purposes, I edited this file three times and forced backup after every change). To restore the files, select the necessary file or folder (in my case, “Test” folder) and click on the green button saying “Restore to original location.” Click “Continue” and after copying all your data will be restored where it was kept before deleting (I would like to note that when a folder is restored, all files will be restored only to the last saved versions). You can also open the File History restore window from Control Panel / File History / Restore personal files or go to any folder which is included into File History (for example, “Test” folder) and click on this symbol in the Home tab (it takes you directly to File History). If you liked this video, click the Like button below and subscribe to our channel to see more. Thank you for watching and good luck!