How to Turn On or Off File History in Windows 10
File History was first introduced in Windows 8, and has been improved in Windows 10.
You can use File History to automatically back up versions of your files on a schedule to a location you select to save to. You can select to save backups to an internal hard drive, externally connected drive (ex: USB drive), or you can save to a drive on a network. You can add, remove, and exclude folders to be backed up by File History.
Over time, you'll have a complete history of your files. If the originals are lost, damaged, or deleted, you can restore them. You can also browse and restore different versions of your files.
File History takes advantage of a feature built into the NTFS file system called the change journal to keep track of changes to files. Essentially, when any change is made to a file or folder on your hard disk, the change journal is updated with a description of the change and the name of the file or folder. So to determine which files need to be backed up, File History simply consults the NTFS change journal. Using the change journal is fast and efficient and won't use up a lot of system resources like running a conventional backup routine does.
If the drive selected as the backup location becomes unavailable, such as when a USB cable is disconnected or the network goes down for maintenance, File History will continue to do its job by saving the copies to a cache on the local drive. Once the backup location becomes available again, the cached contents are transferred to that location and removed from the local drive.
See also:
This tutorial will show you how to turn on or off using File History to back up your files for your account in Windows 10.
File History requires the File History and Windows Search services to be enabled and running.
File History adds 26 characters to each file name as it backs up. The maximum total full path length of any file that it backs up is 210 characters, including these 26 characters. Thus any original file with a full path length of 185 or more characters is ignored and will not be included in the back up.
Contents
- Option One: To Turn On or Off File History in Settings
- Option Two: To Turn On or Off File History in Control Panel
1 Open Settings, and click/tap on the Update & security icon.
2 Do step 3 (off) or step 4 (on) for what you want to do.
This is the default setting.
A) Click/tap on Backup on the left side, and turn off Automatically back up my files on the right side. (see screenshot below)
If you see Add a drive instead, then File History is already turned off without having a selected drive.
B) You can now close Settings if you like.
A) Click/tap on Backup on the left side, and turn on Automatically back up my files on the right side. (see screenshot below)
If you see Add a drive instead, then you will need to select a File History drive instead. File History will automatically be turned on afterwards.
B) File History will now be turned on. If you like, click/tap on More options (see screenshot above) and make any changes to the backup options you want. (see screenshots below)
- Change how often to save copies of your files
- Change how long to keep saved versions of your files
- Add a folder to back up
- Exclude folder from backup
- Select File History drive
1 Open the Control Panel (icons view), and click/tap on the File History icon.
2 Do step 3 (off) or step 4 (on) for what you want to do.
This is the default setting.
A) Click/tap on the Turn off button. (see screenshot below)
B) You can now close the Control Panel if you like.
A) Click/tap on the Turn on button. (see screenshot below)
If you do not want to use the current drive (ex: E: ) for File History, then you will need to select a File History drive you want instead. File History will automatically be turned on afterwards.
If you have a previous backup on this File History drive, then you can select to use it.
B) File History will now be turned on. If you like, you can make any changes to the backup options you want. (see screenshots below)
- Select drive for File History
- Exclude folders from backup
- Change how often to save copies of your files in Advanced settings
- Change how long to keep saved versions of your files in Advanced settings
That's it,
Shawn
Related Tutorials
- How to Enable or Disable File History in Windows 10
- How to Reset File History to Default in Windows 10
- How to Select a File History Drive in Windows 10
- How to Exclude Folders from File History in Windows 10
- How to Manually Create a File History Backup in Windows 10
- How to Add or Remove Folders to be Backed Up by File History in Windows 10
- How to Change how Often to Save File History in Windows 10
- How to Change how Long to Keep File History in Windows 10
- How to Restore Files or Folders using File History in Windows 10
- How to Delete Older Versions of File History in Windows 10
- How to Recommend File History Drive to Homegroup in Windows 10
- How to Add or Remove a Windows Backup and Restore context menu in Windows 10
- How to Add History to Context Menu in Windows 10
- How to Set Up Windows Backup in Windows 10
- How to Create a Windows Backup in Windows 10
- How to Create File History shortcut in Windows 10