Windows 10: Delete Older Versions of File History in Windows 10

How to: Delete Older Versions of File History in Windows 10

How to Delete Older Versions of File History in Windows 10


Information 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.

You can set how long you want to keep saved versions of your files backed up by File History before automatically being deleted.

You can also use File History Cleanup at any time to delete versions of files and folders older than a selected age, except the most recent version of a file or folder. All other files and folders, such as versions that were excluded or removed from your libraries, are also deleted from your File History.

This tutorial will show you how you to use File History Cleanup to delete older backed up versions of files and folders for your account in Windows 10.



Warning File History will eventually be replaced by a new feature called Timeline.


CONTENTS:

• Option One: To Delete Older File History Versions of Files and Folders in File History Cleanup
• Option Two: To Delete Older File History Versions of Files and Folders in Command Prompt

OPTION ONE [/i] To Delete Older File History Versions of Files and Folders in File History Cleanup
1. Open the Control Panel (icons view), and click/tap on the File History icon.

2. Click/tap on the Advanced settings link on the left side. (see screenshot below)



3. Click/tap on the Clean up versions link in the Versions section. (see screenshot below)


Note The Clean up versions link will not be available if you do not have any File History versions available on the currently selected drive.





4. Select the time period of versions you want to delete, and click/tap on Clean up. (see screenshot below)



5. File History Cleanup will now start discovering items for the specified time period, and delete them if available. (see screenshot below)



6. If it didn't find any versions of your files that were that old, click/tap on Close, and repeat step 4 above using a shorter time period if you like. (see screenshot below)



7. If the cleanup completed successfully, click/tap on OK. (see screenshot below)



8. You can now close the File History control panel if you like.





OPTION TWO [/i] To Delete Older File History Versions of Files and Folders in Command Prompt
1. Open a command prompt.

2. Copy and paste the command below for the time period of versions you want to delete into the command prompt, and press Enter. (see screenshots below)


Note The -quite switch option in the commands below is used to not get a message dialog after deleting older files and folders.

For more details on the FhManagew.exe command, see: FhManagew.exe (Windows)


*Arrow All but the latest one

FhManagew.exe -cleanup 0

FhManagew.exe -cleanup 0 -quiet

*Arrow Older than 1 month

FhManagew.exe -cleanup 30

FhManagew.exe -cleanup 30 -quiet

*Arrow Older than 3 months

FhManagew.exe -cleanup 90

FhManagew.exe -cleanup 90 -quiet

*Arrow Older than 6 months

FhManagew.exe -cleanup 180

FhManagew.exe -cleanup 180 -quiet

*Arrow Older than 9 months

FhManagew.exe -cleanup 270

FhManagew.exe -cleanup 270 -quiet

*Arrow Older than 1 year (default)

FhManagew.exe -cleanup 360

FhManagew.exe -cleanup 360 -quiet

*Arrow Older than 2 years

FhManagew.exe -cleanup 720

FhManagew.exe -cleanup 720 -quiet







3. If it didn't find any versions of your files that were that old, click/tap on Close, and repeat step 2 above using a shorter time period if you like. (see screenshot below)


Note You will not see this message dialog if you used the -quite switch in the command.





4. If the cleanup completed successfully, click/tap on OK. (see screenshot below)


Note You will not see this message dialog if you used the -quite switch in the command.





5. You can now close the command prompt if you like.

That's it,
Shawn


Related Tutorials

• How to Reset File History to Default in Windows 10
• How to Turn On or Off File History 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 Recommend File History Drive to Homegroup in Windows 10
• How to Add History to Context Menu in Windows 10
• How to Create File History shortcut in Windows 10

:)

 

Delete selected newer files from Windows 10 File History backup

Hi,

Let's follow these steps to delete the older version of your files in Windows 10:

• Open the Control Panel (icons view), and click/tap on the File History icon.
• Click/tap on the Advanced settings link on the left side.
• Click/tap on the Clean up versions link in the Versions section.
• Select the time period of versions you want to delete, and click/tap on Clean up.
• File History Cleanup will now start discovering items for the specified time period, and delete them if available.
• If it didn't find any versions of your files that were that old, click/tap on Close, and repeat step 4 above using a shorter time period if you like.
• If the cleanup completed successfully, click/tap on OK.
  
• You can now close the File History control panel if you like.

Update us with the results.

Regards.

 

File History - Deleting Entries


I think the reason that no one has replied yet is that, as far as I know, you cannot manually delete individual files within File History without risking breaking the database.

The only safe way to manage your File History storage is to use it's own tools, which are limited to a global delete of copies older than a certain date.

Delete Older Versions of File History in Windows 10

 

Windows 10 Tweaks

Pressing “Windows+Pause Break” (it’s up there next to scroll lock) opens the “System” Window.

Windows 10: In the new version of Windows, Explorer has a section called Quick Access. This includes your frequent folders and recent files. Explorer defaults to opening this page when you open a new window. If you’d rather open the usual This PC, with links to your drives and library folders, follow these steps:

• Open a new Explorer window.
• Click View in the ribbon.
• Click Options.
• Under General, next to “Open File Explorer to:” choose “This PC.”
• Click OK

credit to Lifehacker.

 

Windows 10 File History creating duplicates?

Hi Calvin,



Thank you for writing to Microsoft Community Forums.



File History will not create duplicates instead it will save the newer versions of files that you modify to your files that are being backed up; so that if the originals are lost, damaged, or deleted, you can restore them. You can also browse and restore
different versions of your files.



If you don't want any older versions of files, then you can use
File History Cleanup at any time to delete the versions of files and folders older than a selected age, except the most recent version of a file or folder. All other files and folders, such as versions that were excluded or removed from your libraries,
are also deleted from your File History.



You can follow the below steps to delete the versions of files from File History to save the space on your backup drive.

1. Go to Control Panel in
   icons view > Click on File History > Click on
   Advanced settings on the left side.
   
2. Click on Clean up versions under
   Versions section > Then, select the time period of versions you want to delete and click on
   Clean up.
   
3. File History Cleanup will start discovering items for the specified time period and delete.
   

 

How to delete backup files from File History in Windows 10

This might help, in addition:

How to Delete Older Versions of Files from File History Backup? » Winhelponline :

http://www.winhelponline.com/blog/delete-older-versions-files-file-history/

File History classic UI has an option to purge older copies. Or use FhManageW command-line to clear them quickly.