Windows 10: Duplicate backups maintained in File History.

My computer is names "MYCOMPUTER". Why does File History maintain a Folder called "MYCOMPUTER" under folder "USER" which is under folder "FILEHISTORY", and hen another folder "MYCOMPUTER" on the backup drive. It looks like a duplicate.

:)

 

File History Bugs: Duplicates File Backups and Doesn't Remember Backup Items

Thanks you (all) for your replies. Regarding the most recent fix of stopping file history and deleting the backup, I had tried that multiple times and then did fresh backups both directly in W10 GUI and through the file history tool in control panel.
Yes the "excluded file" list stuck. But the bigger problem of backing up everything EVERY time continues. Instead of a backup only saving incremental data like file history did in W8, the entire archive is backed up each time. For me, that's 3500 files
taking 5 minutes of computer time backed up each time file history runs. I, therefore, only use file history daily but could fill up my 1TB backup disk in weeks or months. What's worse is when I "clean up" the backup (remove old backups on advanced screen)
it takes forever to remove the tens of thousands of duplicate files.

 

Finding duplicate files

Hey hey,

During the years the backups have just accumulated in random places, essentially, and I would like to clean up. Is there a program that can search for duplicate files? And by that I mean identical files. I tried dupeGuru, but that somehow found ... all files to be identical I guess? Like how a bunch of jpg's with different names, sizes and locations being marked 100% identical, or how a bunch of xls-files with completely different everything also were 100% matches with each other. I don't need any fancy functions, just a list of the files that share the name and filesize and created/last write dates.

 

File History restart

Hi Jim,



Thank you for writing to Microsoft Community forums.



To change the backup drive for File History, the current process should be stopped. I suggest you to try the steps listed below to stop file history on an older drive and restart it on a new drive:



Change File History backup drive:

• Open Settings and navigate to Update & Security > Backup.
  
• Click on More Options, scroll down to locate
  Backup to a different drive section, and choose Stop Using Drive.
  
• Plug in the new storage drive, navigate to Settings > Update & Security > Backup,
  and choose Add a Drive.
  
• Restart File History and configure it by referring to the article
  
  File History in Windows.
  

Hope it helps.

Regards,