Windows 10: File History clean up

Last night I decided to clean up back ups in preparation for sending to a new hard drive.


In File History I selected to delete all but the last copies of documents. At the end of the clean up, all I was left was with 4 folders with photos. I had thousands, and thousands of documents.


What on earth went wrong?


I now have nothing, no data, apart from the 4 folders of photos.


Would appreciate any help.

:)

 

File History Drive Full - Now What

Hi Don,

File History drive usually contains older versions of Windows on your PC. To clean your File History drive, we suggest that you follow these steps:

• Open the Control Panel (small icon view), and then click on the
  File History.
• On the left pane, click on Advanced settings.
• Click on the Clean up versions link in the Versions
  section. Note: The Clean up versions link will not be available if you don't have any File History versions available on currently selected drive.
  • 
    
    
• Select the time period of versions you want to delete, and then click 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 on Close, and repeat step 4 above using a shorter time period if you like.
  If the cleanup completed successfully, click on OK.
• You can now close If the cleanup completed successfully, click/tap on OK.
• You can now close the windows.

Let us know if the steps above helped you to resolve your concern.

 

File History not backing up any files

Hello Victor

Thank you for the response. I had already checked that thread, but it hasn't helped me:

• The thread deals with Windows 8's implementation of File History, which is somewhat different to that of Windows 10.
• Most of the thread deals with setting up File History (which I have already done, precisely following the recommended steps). The third link in the thread might have been useful since it appears to link to a page that deals with troubleshooting File History
  (as opposed to setting it up), but unfortunately the link is dead.

Any further suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

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,