How to Back Up Your Files with File History
Your PC would be pretty useless if all your files were lost, so having a reliable file backup routine is essential. Fortunately, Windows 10 comes with an excellent file backup and versioning tool that will be instantly familiar to anyone who’s used Time Machine on a Mac.

In Windows 10, you can still get at File History from the Control Panel, but there's also an easier way via the Settings app. To access this version, open the Settings app and go to Update & Security --> Backup and you’ll be prompted to add a [backup] drive.


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You can use spare hard disks and partitions in your PC , USB-connected hard disks, or network drives to store your File History backup . Setting it up is a simple matter of selecting a drive on which a FileHistory folder will be created. By default, File History will include all your Shell User Folder locations (Documents, Music, Pictures, Video) your OneDrive folder (if you’re using it) and anything else in your C:\Users folder.


You can manage the settings for File History, though, once it is set up by clicking the More options link that will appear in the Backup Settings. This will allow you to control the frequency with which backups are made, how long old versions of files are kept for (this does not include files for which there is only one version), and which folders and included and excluded from the backup.


Perhaps the most useful of these is seeing how much free space is left on your File History drive. If you find the drive is filling up you can click the Advanced options link on the left of the window and then the Clean up versions link. Here you can choose to delete all versions of files older than a specific age or, if you’re comfortable that you don’t need to restore anything, all but the latest one.


A new version of a file is kept each time a change is made to that file. This includes the file being opened, when its last accessed date will be changed. If you have files you open on a regular basis that do not change, such as music or videos, you can prevent your File History drive from filling up with multiple copies of these files by excluding their containing folders from the backup. You should always make sure you do keep a backup copy of the files somewhere else, however.



Restoring Deleted and Previous Versions of Files


You can restore deleted and older versions of files in File History either by clicking the Restore personal files link in the File History, Control Panel applet, or in any File Explorer window by clicking the History button in the ribbon.

This will open File History at the current drive and folder point, though you can still navigate anywhere within your backup from there. The File History restore window has navigation (back, forward, and up) buttons in its top left and an address bar showing the current folder.

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At the bottom of the window are back and forward (by date and time) buttons, with a big green Restore button between them. Once you have navigated to the folder you want to restore deleted or modified file(s) from, use the time buttons to find the correct day and time the backup copy was made, select the file(s) or folder(s) you wish to restore, and hit the big green button. It really is that easy.