Use File History to Recover Your Files
Windows 8 has its own Wayback Machine called File History. Here's how to turn it on and use it so you'll never lose a version of a file again. It happens to everybody: you've accidentally deleted a file and now can't find it. Or you've made changes to a file, only to realize that it was better before you made the changes. Or maybe you simply want to see a file's entire version history. Or, worst of all, your hard disk crashed, and you want to recover files.
Windows 8's File History brings that capability, much like that of Mac OS X's Time Machine, for the first time to Windows. Windows 7 had a feature similar to it, called Previous Versions. But Previous Versions was hard to find and even harder to use. It was, to be honest, something of a failure.
Not so File History. It's a great, though not perfect, feature of Windows 8. There's a good chance that you don't know about it, because it's not enabled by default and there's no app tile for it, so it's not that easy to find. But as you'll see in this tip, once you use it, you'll be glad you found it.
Before we get tip, a few words about what File History does and how it works. It backs up whatever it finds in your Libraries, on your Desktop, in Contacts, and in Favorites, and then lets you restore what it's backed up, including interim versions of your files.
This all means backing up a lot of files, because your Libraries contain, at minimum, the following folders:
- My Documents
- Public Documents
- My Music
- Public Music
- My Pictures
- Public Pictures
- My Videos
- Public Videos
- SkyDrive (only if you've installed the local SkyDrive client and have local SkyDrive folders on your PC)
Tip:
As you'll see later in this tip, there are ways to exclude folders from File History. So if you don't want to back up, for example, videos because they take up too much space, you can exclude folders that contain your videos.
In addition to that, you can add individual folders to File History as well. With that as background, let's get started.
Turning on File History
By default, File History is turned off, and Windows 8 doesn't even tell you it's there. But it's not too hard to find. On the Start screen, type File History, click Settings, and then click the File History icon that appears on the left side of the screen.
You'll need to set where to save copies of your files. You can't choose the hard drive on which you have the files you want backed up, because that would defeat one of the main purposes of the feature-the ability to restore files from a crashed hard disk. If you have more than one hard disk, you can use one of those disks as the location for storing the backed-up files. But it's a better idea to instead use a different disk or location; for example, a folder on another PC on your network, or USB-attached storage.
When you get to the screen, you'll be told that File History is turned off. You'll also see any additional hard drives beyond your primary one, as well as any removable storage connected to your device, such as a USB hard drive or USB flash drive. If you haven't connected them, now's the time to do it.
Select the disk you want to use for storing files for File History and then click "Turn on." If you instead want to use a network location, click "Use network location," then from the screen that appears click, "Add network location," and browse to and select the location you want to use. During that process, you can also create a new folder on your network to be your backup location. Click Select Folder when you've chosen the location.
Note:
You can only add network locations on devices to which you have access.
Once you've chosen the location to backup your files, whether it's on a disk or network location, click "Turn on." When you do, a screen asks whether you want to tell other members of your Homegroup network about this location. In that way, everyone on the network can use a common backup location. Click Yes to notify them, and No not to. After that, you'll be sent back to the File History screen. File History immediately sets to work, and begins backing up your files.
When you come back here again, you'll see a notification telling you when the last time File History backed up your files was. You can also tell File History to back up your files right then by clicking the Run Now link. If you want to exclude any folders, click the "Exclude folders" link, select the folders you want excluded, and File History won't back them up.
File History
You've got plenty of options for changing the way that File History works. Click "Advanced settings" to change the following settings:
Save copies of files
Lets you set how frequently your files are saved. The default is every hour, but you
can select any time between every ten minutes to daily.
Size of offline cache
File History uses a cache on your system disk to replicate your backups. This
cache can be sizable, but this option lets you limit the size. The default size is 5%
of the disk, but you can change that to be as low as 2% or as high as 20%.
Keep saved versions
How long do you want to save the versions of your files? The default is forever.
That can take up a substantial amount of disk space, so you can also set limits on
how long to keep them. Your choices are between one month and two years, and
forever. You can also select "Until space is needed," as a way to balance your need
for old files versus your need for disk space.
Also notable on this screen is the "Open File History events logs to view recent events or errors" link. Click it and you'll open the Windows 8 Event Viewer, which reports on any issues File History might have had. When File Viewer opens, you'll see some details about it. Click the event to see even more details.
Using File History to Recover Files
To recover files with File History, go to the File History screen and click "Restore personal files," or launch File Explorer and click History on the Home tab. It makes much more sense to use the File Explorer way to restore files, because you can first head right to the folder where you want to either recover deleted files or recover a previous version of an existing file. You can see what File History looks like when accessed this way.
You'll see the most recent versions of your files. You can navigate from here much the same way you do in File Explorer-double-click folders to drill down, click the up arrow at the address bar to move up a folder, and type an address into the address bar to go to a specific folder.
Much more interesting is the bottom of the screen. There, you'll find a way to go back in time to see previous versions of the files and folders-and restore them. Click the back button to go back in time; when you're back in time, click the forward button to go forward in time. You see the date and time the folder or file was backed up at the top of each screen. There's also a pair of numbers, like "4 of 4." That means that there are total of four versions of the file or folder, and you're looking at the most recent version.
Recovering a file or folder is simple. Navigate to what you want to recover and click the green button. What you'll see depends on whether you've highlighted a file or folder that's been deleted, or for which you have a later version. When you're clicking an older version of an existing file. In that case, you can replace the newer file with the older one, skip the file and do nothing, or compare information about the two files to see which you want to keep. In that case, click "Compare info for both files" and a screen showing basic details about each file. You can then decide which to keep.
But what if you want to keep both files-the old and the new? Instead of clicking the green button, right-click the file (or folder), and from the screen that appears, select "Restore to." You can then restore the file to a different location than the current file; that way, you'll be able to have both files. In addition, when you right-click, you can instead preview the file by first selecting Preview.
Troubleshoot with the Action Center
This little-used tool can help fix problems with your Windows 8 device, including ones you never even knew you had.
As you can see in this tips, Windows 8 includes plenty of tools for juicing performance and troubleshooting problems. You've likely overlooked one called the Action Center, but it's worth visiting. To run it, type Action at the Start screen, highlight settings, and click the "Action Center" icon that appears.
Using the Action Center is exceptionally easy and intuitive. Click Troubleshooting to track down any problems with your PC, and click Recovery to refresh your PC with a quick reinstall of Windows. Pay attention to the Maintenance area, because it'll prod you to take actions you may have missed. For example, on my Windows 8 PC, I hadn't realized that a proper device driver wasn't installed, and the Maintenance section prompted me with a nice clear Install button. Click the down arrow next to it, and you'll find a variety of links to various maintenance tools
There are also links for checking your security, looking at old messages from the Action Center, and more. Take a few minutes to check them out. Your PC will thank you.