How and Why Should You Use File History in Windows 10
While using a computer you are always at risk of losing your important files due to accidental deletion data corruption hard drive crashes virus attacks etc. In other words your important data is extremely vulnerable as it is exposed to several potential mishaps.
The only way to keep your vital information safe is to back it up at regular intervals. This way even if something goes wrong with the hard drive or the data itself it can be brought back by restoring it from the backup files.
However the point is most people especially the home users are not aware of any such backup tools and neither do they care about their data until the need arises only to learn later that the files are gone for good.
Once this happens people start searching for some data recovery tools and finally end up paying a hefty amount to a local PC technician to recover the lost data using any effective recovery program that is easily available online probably for free.
If you are reading this you can save yourself from all this trouble.
Although you should have an efficient recovery tool on your hard drive it is always a good practice to take precautionary measures right from the start rather rushing for the possible cures after the damage is done.
That said if you are not aware of any decent data backup tool or you don’t want to pay for and/or install any such program on your PC Windows 10’s File History is something you’d love to know about.
File History once turned on automatically backs up your data in the background. The process is seamless and none of your intervention is needed. All you need to do is connect a blank USB drive to your PC turn on File History and you’re done. File History regularly creates a backup of your data and saves it in the USB drive you connect to your PC.
Later if your data gets corrupted or lost you can use Windows’ File Explorer to go to the USB drive open the FileHistory folder locate the subfolder your data is backed up to and copy it back to its original location.
You can follow the steps given below to turn of File History on your Windows 10 computer:
Grab a black USB drive and connect it to one of the USB ports on your computer.
On your Windows 10 desktop window right-click the Start button.
Click Control Panel from the context menu
Go to System and Security.
Click File History.
From the right pane of the File History window ensure that Windows 10 detects the connected USB stick.
Click the Turn on the button to turn the File History feature on.
To turn off File History repeat the above steps and click Turn off when on step 7.
As mentioned above to access the backed-up files use File Explorer to go to the connected USB drive and dig in the FileHistory folder.
Note: While restoring your data from the USB drive you may have to dig deep inside the FileHistory folder to locate your files.