Delete Old File History Versions in Windows 10 – Hit the Windows key and type: control panel and hit Enter or select the result at the top to open the classic Control Panel. From Control Panel, scroll down and click on File History.
Next, click the Advanced Settings link from the list on the left.
Under the Versions section in Advanced Settings, click the “Clean up versions” link. Also, note that here you can manage how often copies of files are created and the length of time versions are saved.
From the drop-down, choose how far back you want to delete the versions of saved files. You can select from older than two years to older than just one month. There is also the option to delete all versions except for the most recent one.
You will get a progress message while the older versions are being deleted. The process is generally quick. But it will vary depending on the amount of data you’re clearing and the PC’s speed.
To review your files before deleting versions, hit the Windows key and type : file history, and hit Enter. Then you can view when files and folders have been backed up.
For more on making sure your Windows 10 data is backed up and secure, check out our articles on as well as, Do you use the File History feature in Windows 10 as part of your overall data backup strategy? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below. Or, jump in our Windows 10 Forums for more discussions and troubleshooting advice. : How to Delete Old Windows 10 File History to Reclaim Drive Space
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Contents
- 1 How do I clean up file history?
- 2 What happens if I delete file history folder?
- 3 What do you do when file history is full?
- 4 Does deleting history free up storage?
- 5 Do I need file history?
- 6 Can anyone see your history after you delete it?
- 7 What is the differences between a System Restore and the file history?
- 8 Does Windows 10 keep a log of activity?
- 9 Does Windows 10 have a file shredder?
- 10 Does clearing history delete everything permanently?
- 11 Should I have file history on or off?
- 12 Does clearing history delete everything?
Can you delete files from file history?
To delete everything you need to go to the backup drive and delete manually the folder named FileHistory, where are stored all File History backup. There is no problem in just deleting it.
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How do I clean up file history?
Way 1: Delete File History folder using Clean up Versions – 1. Plug in your backup drive and make sure it can be detected. Then, go to control panel > System and Security and select File History to open it.2. Check the file history status and if you can change its backup setting. >> If you see the file history is on, you can delete the backups. In this case, click the Advanced settings option at the left. >> If not, I’m sorry, you can’t, the file history folder is locked. 3. Go to Versions > Keep saved versions and select Clean up versions under it.4. In the File History Clean-up window, select All but the latest one or older than 1 month to 1 year and click Clean up to start the deletion. The previous one will free up much disk space as possible for you.
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How do I delete files from Drive History?
Step 1. Turn Off File History from the Control Panel. – 1. Navigate to Control Panel -> System and Security -> File History.2. At File History options click the Turn off button. * * Note: Keep in mind, that the stored data on the File History drive wouldn’t be deleted. If you want to permanently remove the ‘File History” backups, then explore the contents on the ‘File History’ drive and delete the “FileHistory” folder.3. After disabling the File History, you should see a similar window on your screen. If you change your decision on the future and you want to re-enable the File History just press the ‘Turn on’ Button.
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What happens if I delete file history folder?
Can i delete File History Hi Allen, Thank you for posting your query in Microsoft forums. I would like to tell you that, File History is a backup application that continuously protects your personal files stored in Libraries, Desktop, Favorites, and Contacts folders.
It periodically (by default every hour) scans the file system for changes and copies changed files to another location. Every time any of your personal files has changed, its copy will be stored on a dedicated, external storage device selected by you. Over time, File History builds a complete history of changes made to any personal file.
However, it is a personal choice to delete it. Note: It is recommended to take a backup of all the activities. Since, everything will be deleted from the history.
Also refer: What if something goes wrong in File History? How to use File History For any other Windows related issue, reply to us and we will be happy to assist you.
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Threats include any threat of suicide, violence, or harm to another. Any content of an adult theme or inappropriate to a community web site. Any image, link, or discussion of nudity. Any behavior that is insulting, rude, vulgar, desecrating, or showing disrespect. Any behavior that appears to violate End user license agreements, including providing product keys or links to pirated software.
Unsolicited bulk mail or bulk advertising. Any link to or advocacy of virus, spyware, malware, or phishing sites. Any other inappropriate content or behavior as defined by the Terms of Use or Code of Conduct. Any image, link, or discussion related to child pornography, child nudity, or other child abuse or exploitation. Yes No Great! Thanks for your feedback. How satisfied are you with this reply? Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site. How satisfied are you with this reply? Thanks for your feedback. : Can i delete File History
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Where are file history files stored?
How To Configure a File History Backup for Windows 10 – As far as set-it-and-forget-it backup solutions go, there are few more convenient than the File History feature that’s built natively into Windows 10. We’ve probably all been lectured at some point on the importance of backing up our data, but what is the best way to do it? If you are looking for an easy, lightweight backup solution, then it may be worth your time to check out the File History backup feature that is built natively into Windows 10.
File History can be used to automatically back up your data in a non-disruptive way. The catch, however, is that File History is somewhat limited in its capabilities. The option to create a File History backup is buried within the Windows Control Panel. As you have probably noticed, Microsoft hides the Control Panel in Windows 10.
To access it, right-click on the Start button, click Run, and then enter the word “Control” at the run prompt. Once the Control Panel opens, click on System and Security, followed by File History. You can see what the File History screen looks like in Figure 1, Figure 1: This is the File History screen. I recommend taking a moment to review the File History screen before you do anything else, because the screen contains some good information. In the figure above, for example, we can see that File History is off, and that if we were to turn it on, it would copy files from libraries, the desktop, contacts and favorites to the E: drive.
- If this information reflects the way that you want to use the File History feature, then you can simply click Turn On to begin using File History.
- But what if you want to make a few changes? One of the most common changes that people often make when using File History is the location of the backup files.
In this case, File History is being automatically pointed to a spare hard disk on my PC, but it is possible to back data up to an alternate location. To do so, just click the Select Drive link. Upon doing so, you will be taken to a screen that allows you to pick from all of the hard drives that are suitable for use as a backup target. Figure 2: You can choose the backup location. One more thing that you will notice about Figure 2 is that it provides you with the option of adding a network location. This means that it is possible to write a File History backup to a network location. There are two other options that you can configure for File History backups.
- One option is to exclude specific folders from backup.
- If there is a particular folder that you don’t wish to back up for some reason, just click on the Exclude Folders link (shown earlier in Figure 1 ), and then pick the folder.
- The other thing that you should definitely take a look at is the advanced settings.
When you click on the Advanced Settings link, you will be taken to the screen that is shown in Figure 3, Figure 3: These are the advanced settings. As you can see in the figure above, the Versions section contains an option to control how frequently files are saved. By default, backups are created hourly, but you can configure backups to occur as frequently as every 10 minutes or as infrequently as once per day.
The other setting in the Versions section is the Keep Saved Versions setting. By default, this is set to Forever. If you’ve got sufficient disk space, then I recommend leaving this option set to Forever. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t like the idea of an automated process erasing my older backups. If you do want to perform some sort of automated cleanup, however, you can opt to remove old backups after a month, after two years or at various points in between.
There is also an option to keep old backups until Windows needs the disk space. As I have gone through the various File History settings, you might have noticed that there wasn’t an option to choose what gets backed up. File History is only able to back up your library folders, your desktop, your contacts and your favorites. Figure 4: This is the File History file structure. File History isn’t a good option for those who need granular control over the backup process. Even so, File History can be ideal for anyone who needs set-it-and-forget-it backups of a few key folders. About the Author Brien Posey is a 21-time Microsoft MVP with decades of IT experience.
As a freelance writer, Posey has written thousands of articles and contributed to several dozen books on a wide variety of IT topics. Prior to going freelance, Posey was a CIO for a national chain of hospitals and health care facilities. He has also served as a network administrator for some of the country’s largest insurance companies and for the Department of Defense at Fort Knox.
In addition to his continued work in IT, Posey has spent the last several years actively training as a commercial scientist-astronaut candidate in preparation to fly on a mission to study polar mesospheric clouds from space. You can follow his spaceflight training on his Web site,
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Is Windows 10 file history incremental?
On Windows 10, “File History” is a feature to quickly create incremental backups of your files on an external or network drive to prevent data loss against storage failure, accidental deletion, or corruption. By default, File History backs up your files stored in Documents, Pictures, Videos, Music, and Desktop folders, including the OneDrive files locally stored on the device.
- If you have files on a different location, you have to add those locations in the File History settings to ensure they get backed up.
- On Windows 10, this file backup feature remains pretty much unchanged, but now you can also configure it using the Settings app.
- Using Settings, you can turn on automatic backup and access many options, such as how often file backups are made, how long data should be kept, include and exclude folders, and configure a different drive to create automatic backups with File History.
Once the feature is configured, it will create a copy of your personal files that have changed since the last time the backup was performed. Over time, these incremental backups will pile up for you to recover any of them as needed, and you can even restore different versions of each file.
- Enable File History on external drive on Windows 10
- Enable File History in network folder on Windows 10
- Use File History to restore files on Windows 10
- Related: File History video tutorial
What do you do when file history is full?
The File History Cleanup window opens. You are asked to select the criteria based on which to delete older versions of files and folders so that you can free up storage space. The default value is ‘Older than 1 year.’ Click on it and select different criteria.
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Does deleting history free up storage?
Clear Your Cache Clearing the cache removes temporary files, such as search history in YouTube or Chrome. Deleting the data clears the cache as well as all other information stored in the app, such as user settings. Either of these options will free up at least a little bit of space.
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Do I need file history?
Running File History once every hour should be enough for most people. By default File History keeps saved versions of your files, forever. If you edit, add, or remove files frequently, this setting may leave you out of storage space for backups, relatively quickly.
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Can anyone see your history after you delete it?
Why Clearing Your Browsing History Does Not Protect Your Privacy I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but when you clear your history to keep your browsing activities confidential, it’s like moving a folder full of confidential documents from your desk into the desk’s drawer.
- Even though the folder is gone from the direct view of unwanted people, but the documents still exist and can easily be found with a bit of extra effort.
- In technical terms, your deleted browsing history can be recovered by unauthorized parties, even after you cleared them.
- Why is it so? Let’s explore how Windows deletes confidential information and you’ll know the answer in a short while.
But first, let’s have a look at what browsing history actually is. Your browsing history is made up of various items, such as, site URLs, cookies, cache files, download list, search history and so on. The type of files we need to focus on now is the cache files, because they are easy to recover and once recovered, they can reveal unauthorized parties basically everything about your Internet activities.
- So what are the cache files and what do they do? Let’s say you visit www.amazon.com for the very first time.
- The site has a distinctive brand logo, a checkout cart, a sign-in box and many other items that remain unchanged anytime you visit the site.
- The site also displays hundreds of products that are likely to stay on the site for some, or a long time to come.
The way your browser is “thinking” is this: Why don’t we save the permanent page elements to the computer so we don’t need to download them again and again from the remote Amazon server when the guy returns to the site? That’s a really nice feature that speeds up browsing a great deal.
However, please keep in mind that your browser caches everything it encounters just in case it needs to use that item again, be it a logo, an image, a photo, a video, a podcast, a site URL and so on. So after a while the cache folder turns into a digital travel diary that has a record of every websites you have ever visited and the activities you have performed on those sites.
Like I said, your browsing history includes the cache files. Now, the problem is that when you “delete” a file in Windows (it doesn’t matter if it’s a photo, a financial plan, or a cache file), the operating system doesn’t bother shredding the sensitive information (overwriting it with random data).
To save time and resource, it simply removes the file’s reference from the directories (that’s why your deleted browsing history seems to be gone) and moves the actual information contained in the file to a special area, called free space, on your computer’s hard drive where it will be overwritten by new files over time.
However, the problem is that Windows employs a user-independent pattern to overwrite deleted files so the overwriting can take weeks, months, or even years! Since the confidential history files are actually not gone from your computer after deletion, they can be accessed and recovered by unauthorized parties using free file recovery tools available on the web.
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Does file history overwrite?
The restore operation will begin when you click the Green restore button. – During the restore operation, you may see a Replace Or Skip Files dialog, like the one shown in Figure I, You should select Replace The Files In The Destination. File History will overwrite all the duplicates of the standard files that were created in your new installation.
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What is file History data $of?
According to this answer on answer.microsoft.com, $OF holds files whose pathnames are too long to be stored on your backup device.
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Does file history run automatically?
Lance Whitney Backing up your documents and other files in Windows is always advisable in case the originals ever get lost or corrupted. That’s especially true for files that are important, sensitive, or irreplaceable. But ideally, you want a seamless and automated way to back up your files so that you don’t have to keep doing it manually.
- Though you can turn to a variety of third-party backup programs, a tool built into Windows is worth trying, namely, File History.
- Available in Windows 10 and 11, File History will automatically back up files from specific folders on your PC to an external source, such as a USB drive or network location.
Your backups run in the background based on the interval you set. And if you ever need to restore a file, just open and browse through your previous backups to find the right version. By default, File History will back up specific folders under your User account, such as Documents, Music, Pictures, Videos, and Desktop.
- You can remove and add folders to make sure that all the files you choose are backed up no matter where they reside.
- One downside of using File History is that its days may be numbered.
- I’ve heard rumors that Microsoft plans to deprecate the feature at some point, forcing users to turn to other backup methods, such as OneDrive.
One clue to File History’s future lies in the way it works in Windows 11 versus Windows 10. In Windows 10, the feature is easy to set up and use as you run it from the Settings app. But in Windows 11, Microsoft removed File History from Settings; your only option is to run it from Control Panel, which is clumsy and seems like a clear step backward.
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What is the differences between a System Restore and the file history?
File History vs System Image Backup
- Hi,
- Thank you for writing to Microsoft Community Forums.
- We appreciate your interest in the features of File History and System image Backup.
A system image is an exact copy of operating system. By default, a system image includes the drives required for Windows to run. It also includes Windows and your system settings, programs, and files. You can use a system image to restore the contents of your computer if your hard disk or computer ever stop working.
- The main difference is the System image back up restores the entire OS along with files and settings, whereas File History is only restricted to file backup and there is no difference with the folders apart from the purpose.
- You may also want to refer and for more details.
- Regards,
Type of abuse Harassment or threats Inappropriate/Adult content Nudity Profanity Software piracy SPAM/Advertising Virus/Spyware/Malware danger Other Term of Use or Code of Conduct violation Child exploitation or abuse Harassment is any behavior intended to disturb or upset a person or group of people.
Threats include any threat of suicide, violence, or harm to another. Any content of an adult theme or inappropriate to a community web site. Any image, link, or discussion of nudity. Any behavior that is insulting, rude, vulgar, desecrating, or showing disrespect. Any behavior that appears to violate End user license agreements, including providing product keys or links to pirated software.
Unsolicited bulk mail or bulk advertising. Any link to or advocacy of virus, spyware, malware, or phishing sites. Any other inappropriate content or behavior as defined by the Terms of Use or Code of Conduct. Any image, link, or discussion related to child pornography, child nudity, or other child abuse or exploitation. Yes No Sorry this didn’t help. Great! Thanks for your feedback. How satisfied are you with this reply? Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site. How satisfied are you with this reply? Thanks for your feedback. : File History vs System Image Backup
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Does Windows 10 keep a log of activity?
Activity history for multiple accounts – For multiple accounts, activity history is collected and stored locally for each local account, Microsoft account, or work or school account that you have associated with your device in Settings > Accounts > Email & accounts, When you choose to send the activity history for your work or school account to Microsoft, activities from the primary work or school account on that device are sent to Microsoft. If you have more than one device, and you have multiple accounts on one or more of those devices, you can see activity history from your second device’s primary account on the first device (as a secondary account). You can also see these accounts in Windows 10 under Settings > Privacy > Activity history and in Windows 11 under Settings > Privacy & security > Activity history, where you can filter out activities from specific accounts from showing in your timeline. Hiding an account does not delete the data on the device, nor in the cloud. To learn more about how Microsoft products and services use this data to personalize experiences while respecting your privacy, see the Privacy Statement,
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Does Windows 10 have a file shredder?
Does Windows 10 Have a File Shredder? – Windows do not come with a built-in file shredder. It cannot shred and delete a file in its entirety. It, however, has a built-in Command Prompt command to erase an entire disk or drive. The Clean command from Command Prompt can be a great choice to assist you in wiping the entire drive or disk. If you are looking for the option to shred a single file, the method will not work. In such a scenario, you need to depend on a third-party downloader for the purpose.
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Does clearing history delete everything permanently?
How to delete your browser search history on a computer – Clearing your browser history is NOT the same as clearing your Google Web & App Activity. When you clear your browser history, you’re only deleting the history that’s locally stored on your computer,
Clearing your browser history doesn’t do anything to the data stored on Google’s servers. However, if you’re concerned about privacy and protecting your data, you should empty your browser cache regularly, which includes your Google search history as well as any stored cookies, logins, and passwords saved in your browser.
Use these steps to delete your Google search history in any browser.
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Should I have file history on or off?
Running File History once every hour should be enough for most people. By default File History keeps saved versions of your files, forever. If you edit, add, or remove files frequently, this setting may leave you out of storage space for backups, relatively quickly.
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Can you ever permanently delete history?
Clear Your Google History on PC –
Select “Clear browsing data” on the left-hand side of the screen. In the drop-down menu, select how much data you want to delete next to “Time range”. To clear all of your Google History, select “All time” from the drop-down menu. Check the boxes for the data you want Chrome to delete, for instance, “Browsing history”. To remove everything from your Google history, select the Advanced subheading and check all the boxes. Once you’re finished, click on the blue “Clear data” button.
Does clearing history delete everything?
Basic –
- Browsing history: Clearing your browsing history deletes the following:
- Web addresses you’ve visited are removed from the History page.
- Shortcuts to those pages are removed from the New Tab page.
- Address bar predictions for those websites are no longer shown.
- Cookies and other site data
- Cookies: Cookies are files created by websites you visit. They make your online experience easier by saving browsing information.
- Site data: HTML5-enabled storage types including application caches, Web Storage data, Web SQL Database data, and Indexed Database data,
- Handlers. Chrome allows external applications and web services to open certain links. For example, certain links can open a site like Gmail or a program like iTunes. The default action you set for certain types of link will be deleted
- Media licenses: Licenses for HTML5 protected content, like movies or music that you’ve played or downloaded, are deleted.
- Cached images and files: Chrome remembers parts of pages to help them open faster during your next visit. Text and images from pages you’ve visited in Chrome are removed.