Windows 10: Backing up for Re-install -- File History is huge, getting huger

I'm having to back up data to re-install/clean-install W10.

Owing to noting how huge File History was....I took some large folders out of the backup. (4GB, 6GB, 7GB)

On re-running the Backup each time, it didn't get smaller, it got larger and larger.

The SP3 is hardly used....77MB music on it.
Plus about 5GB of residual Dropbox folders (left over from what I already cut out). I guess the notorious Outlook backup (3.3GB) is bloating it, but that wouldn't change within an 8-hour period.

I thought it was a smart backup, incremental-like. Anyway, guess not, but why is it getting bigger? It's up to 28GB now.

:)

 

File history is backing up unchanged files

I ran SFC and got the answer I didn't want--something was wrong and it couldn't fix it. I couldn't find any actual errors in the log file, although there were some warnings like:

2015-08-25 20:24:59, Info CSI 000045cf [DIRSD OWNER WARNING] Directory [ml:154{77},l:152{76}]"\??\C:\WINDOWS\SysWOW64\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\Modules\WindowsErrorReporting" is not owned but specifies SDDL in
component Microsoft-Windows-ErrorReportingPowershell, pA = x86, nonSxS, PublicKeyToken = {l:8 b:31bf3856ad364e35}

2015-08-25 20:24:59, Info CSI 000045ca [DIRSD OWNER WARNING] Directory [ml:110{55},l:108{54}]"\??\C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportArchive" is not owned but specifies SDDL in component Microsoft-Windows-ErrorReportingCore,
pA = x86, nonSxS, PublicKeyToken = {l:8 b:31bf3856ad364e35}

2015-08-25 20:24:59, Info CSI 000045d9 Warning - Overlap: Duplicate ownership for directory [l:58{29}]"\??\C:\WINDOWS\SysWOW64\setup" in component Microsoft-Windows-Foundation-Default-Security, Version = 10.0.10240.16384,
pA = x86, nonSxS, PublicKeyToken = {l:8 b:31bf3856ad364e35}

Because there was no way to separate the multiple copies, I just deleted my File History User folder. When I did that, Windows says that it's turned ON, but nothing is getting backed up. So I took the suggestion from the article you referenced and removed
and reconnected the drive, or tried to. It let me turn it off, but not turn it back on (button disabled). I turned it on in the Control Panel. The moment I did that, I got an alert saying the drive was disconnected; however it did create the File History directory
structure, with no files yet.

So I'll give it a while.

 

File history is backing up unchanged files

I have File History turned on, and my backup disk filled up. After researching the issue I found this Microsoft TechNet article (Windows 8: File History explained | TechNet Magazine) that says:

Any time your personal files change, there will be a copy stored on a dedicated, external storage device of your choice. File History continuously protects your personal files
stored in libraries, desktop, favorites and contacts folders. It periodically (every hour by default) scans the file system for changes and copies changed files to another location. Over time, File History builds a complete history of the changes made to any
personal file.

That's what I want to happen, but instead I am getting multiple copies of
unchanged files. For example I have a photo from 2011 for which there are 5 copies all with the same original file name and the same modification date. In fact, 4 of the files are appended with today's date! There are 500 GB of these duplicates files and
documents. Note that Yesterday I removed some files from the list of files backed up with file history.

This is what I'm seeing (typical):

• IMG_0733 (2015_08_07 08_12_01 UTC)
• IMG_0733 (2015_08_25 01_47_23 UTC)
• IMG_0733 (2015_08_25 04_07_08 UTC)
• IMG_0733 (2015_08_25 05_55_08 UTC)
• IMG_0733 (2015_08_25 07_45_30 UTC)

Obviously I cannot just tell File History to keep files for just a week, since many of these duplicate files have today's date!

I have seen similar problems reported with Windows 8, but what I found there was that the problem had been fixed with an update from Microsoft.

How can I get File History to work as documented.