Windows 10: Win 11 File History back-up is ignoring some folders/files

Hello,This is a File History question but I have to first explain, as a cautionary tale for others, how I stumbled upon the issue during the trouble-shooting of a start-up issue that has since been resolved .I have a PC desktop, Windows 11 Pro with bitlocker activated. I have been using File History method of backing everything up to an external hard drive. It's not on an automatic schedule, I merely have a weekly calendar event notify me when it's time to do it manually. I keep the back-up drive unplugged from the PC between manual back-ups.Recently, my PC had startup trouble blue screen

:)

 

How to remove folders from File History

• I had the same problem, and I solved in this way:
  Control Panel -> System and Security-> File History -> Turn off
  Settings -> Update & Security -> Backup -> More options -> Stop using this drive
  Delete the File History folder in your external drive.
  Start using File History again.
  After performing these steps, I can easily add folders to "Excluded Folders" and they remain excluded. I checked in the actual files and folders saved on the external disk, and it works.
  I did not modify the default settings about how often and how long backup is saved, File History is working ok now. So I guess it is important to click "Stop using this drive" in order to reset File History.
  Hope this will be helpful

 

File History won't exclude folders

I think what happens is that there is some issue or circumstance that causes File History to ignore the backup and exclusion lists altogether. What the circumstances are I don't know but I think its fair to say they are pretty wide. If you look in the folders
where your file history back-ups are stored there are some configuration files, (Sorry I am not using File History right now because of the myriad of problems with it, and don't remember the name or extension), anyways if you open them up in Notepad you can
see what has and hasn't been added to the backup and exclusion lists. The syntax is pretty strange but you will recognize the folders and paths of the stuff your trying to exclude. When I was trying to get this to work I found that generally whatever I added
to the exclusion list would be listed there in the configuration file even after it showed to be reset back to default in either Settings or Control Panel. However File History wouldn't exclude those files even though they were listed. I think File History
basically just ignores the configuration file created by Control Panel and Settings and instead uses a default configuration file stored elsewhere.

My guess is that if you can find and edit that default file directly you will see your changes take effect. It could just operate off of registry settings though, but it may be worth a try.

If you are ever lucky enough to get File History working you will probably be in for another rude realization, when you see that unchanged files are backed up each time File History creates a new version. So say you set your File History setting to every
10 minutes, and you are backing up your Pictures folder either because you want to or because you are unable not to. Well at the end of the day you will have 144 identical copies or version of each picture in that folder because for some reason File History
does not know how to determine which files it has already backed up before.

I hate for people to keep spinning their wheels on what I believe is a fruitless endeavor but I hope people don't just give up either, which will cause Microsoft to walk away from the problem they never stepped up to fix.

 

File History Not Backing Documents Windows 11

File History is not backing up all files and folders on Windows 11.

File History is only backing up files and folders on my desktop and downloads folder.





Troubleshooting steps I took:

1. Deleted all files and folders off the external drive I use for back up

2. Turned off file history

3. Set up File History again to back up my files

File History would only back up files and folders on my desktop and downloads folder

Repeated steps 1 and 2

Doubled checked and made sure One Drive backup is still off.

I opened the two configuration files used for backing up and updated them to include all folders that File History should back.

Repeated step 3.

Still File History on Windows 11 will not back up all folders and files.

Microsoft needs to update File History on Windows 11 to how it was used on Windows 10 - giving users to set it up within settings and give us users the options to add locations.

After all of the troubleshooting steps I took, it appears as though File History back up is stuck between a selection from Windows 10 prior to upgrading my PC to Windows 11.