File History – Manual maintenance possible?

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I’m running File History under Win10. I want to delete a file/folder from my Data drive AND all their corresponding File History backups. I recognize File History Settings allows me to automatically maintain backup files just by changing the retention age of backups. But as I understand it, this only deletes revisions and not the original file. I also don’t know if File History has a cataloging/recording mechanism for it’s process as there’s very little info online on how it operates. So my question is can one delete any given file/folder from it’s original data location along with the corresponding File History file/folder without impacting how File History works? :confused:

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Something I would like the answer to as well….

My suggestion would be to rename the relevant folder – if it throws a wobbly then unrename it. I might try this tomorrow – too late here tonight…

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I didn’t have much time for this today, but have just Googled for information on the Catalog#edb files. One useful link was found here

Looking at what it holds and the comments made there would indicate to me that it might well be inadvisable to delete older Files History files, so I won’t be doing that. I think MS need to give us a bit more flexibility in managing older data – does anyone know if there is any way of asking them if it’s on their radar?

Stan, I’ve just reread your post and I’m not sure you have it right. You can delete any file from its original location but the File History backups will remain unless you use the option to change how long they are kept. But that will apply to all files saved in FH and may not be what you want. And that’s my problem, I want to delete thousands of FH files from my automatic weather station as they are updated every few seconds but I have no way of doing this safely.

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I didn’t have much time for this today, but have just Googled for information on the Catalog#edb files. One useful link was found here

Looking at what it holds and the comments made there would indicate to me that it might well be inadvisable to delete older Files History files, so I won’t be doing that. I think MS need to give us a bit more flexibility in managing older data – does anyone know if there is any way of asking them if it’s on their radar?

Stan, I’ve just reread your post and I’m not sure you have it right. You can delete any file from its original location but the File History backups will remain unless you use the option to change how long they are kept. But that will apply to all files saved in FH and may not be what you want. And that’s my problem, I want to delete thousands of FH files from my automatic weather station as they are updated every few seconds but I have no way of doing this safely.

That link was way beyond TMI for me! 🙂
Now, to address a key issue I need to clarify. FH Clean-up dialog box says “The clean-up deletes versions of files and folders older than the selected age, except the most recent version file or folder.”. I interpret the word “version” to NOT include the original file but subsequent versions of, e.g. modifications to, that original file. In other words, no matter what “age” of files I select for deletion, the original will always be maintained in FH. Worst case example: an original file was never modified over a years time and I select “older than 1 month”, the original isn’t erased from FH. Do you concur?

As for those who are suggesting the selection of a decent 3rd party program, I’m not convinced nor aware that they provide the ability to delete a single file (as I’m asking) from within any given backup session either. However, I what I do know is 3rd party programs are unable provide what FH does: instant access to any and all previous file version(s) in a single view by simply right clicking a file in File Explorer and selecting “Restore previous versions”. 3rd party software would require extensive, time-consuming searches through various backups to find a particular file version. So I think it just depends what you’re looking for out of your backups!

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Time you guys got a decent 3rd party backup program. 🙂

cheers, Paul

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Time you guys got a decent 3rd party backup program. 🙂

cheers, Paul

Amen!

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Hmm, my reply to Paul seems to have disappeared.

It was along the lines of asking what could he recommend. But having said that, I’m happy with File History as the problem I indicated above is only minor (and the folder in question is only a small part of the total.)

Just to let you know my backup regime, I image once a week with Macrium Reflect. I use FH at hourly intervals to a desktop hard disk (same one as the MR image). I also use Robocopy to copy my documents and pictures to a NAS and also to another PC. These latter two are not (as yet) done automatically.

The only reason I keep saved versions forever is a (probably unreasonable) fear I might delete something I later actually want. This is rather inefficient! And unlikely!

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I’m not a fan of multiple backup programs because you have to remember what to do for which if you want to recover, but it’s your data and multiple backups is much better than none.

BTW, does Macrium backup the File History files?

cheers, Paul

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…BTW, does Macrium backup the File History files?…

Normally I would expect that “File history” would be backing up to a drive other than C:

So when you create a Macrium backup image of C: the image will not contain any “File History” data.

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I’m not a fan of multiple backup programs because you have to remember what to do for which if you want to recover, but it’s your data and multiple backups is much better than none.

BTW, does Macrium backup the File History files?

cheers, Paul

I have two disks, an SSD for the OS and a spinner for the data. Reflect is run on the SSD and I have a memory stick with the software to restore from it. The data disk is backed up via FH and also the two Robocopy backups. If I was to lose the data drive then I can use FH or Robocopy in reverse to restore my data. Simples!

And as Coochin says, the File History files aren’t imaged as they are on a desktop backup drive. This is effectively backed up via the Robocopy backups.

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Stan, this is how I understand FH works. It backs up any file or folder that has been changed since the last backup. The default is saving every hour so anything changed in that hour is backed up. Note that it doesn’t overwrite these backed up files, it keeps them. If you look at the file history folders on your backup disk you’ll see they have date and times added to the filename e.g 40-1w2p-v-l (2015_08_01 11_34_13 UTC).pdf.

Should you delete anything, these files are retained and you can find them using the History link on the home tab (it’s highlighted on the first attachment). The example above is a file I have deleted, so I had to go back from page 13 to page 8 to find it, see attachment 2.

46335-history
46336-history2

Now to cleanup. If I use cleanup, it will delete from the FH folders all files older than the specified time. So far, so obvious. However, any file that still exists (one that’s being backed up) then the most recent backup is retained. This seems reasonable to me as that is what FH is there for.

On the other hand, if you have deleted that file, cleanup will delete it from the FH folders as well. I would expect that the example file above will be deleted if I run cleanup and will no longer be retrievable using FH.

Your use of the phrase ‘original file’ confused me as I assumed this was the file being backed up, not the first FH backup.

I hope this helps

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Access-mdb, thanks for your details. It helped me understand the inner workings of “Clean-up” in FH.
And I especially want to thank you for your example. You educated me on a feature I’ve never used before – “History Link”. IMHO, that link is far superior method than right clicking a file name and selecting “Restore previous version”! The link provides a “preview” of the available files while right clicking only provides a “list” view. Makes selecting the right file version so much easier.

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No probs Stan. It helped me to understand it better myself! I just have to bite the bullet and do a cleanup – I doubt if I want any version of a file older than a year!

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I think I know what you were asking, and I think it’s possible. Use Windows Explorer to open & explore the drive that FH is using for the files. Do not use the “Restore Personal Files” option on the file history window. Do a search for the file name that you are looking for and that file will display each & every version that was ever backed up, with time/date stamps. Delete each one that you don’t want any longer to be in the file history.

Was this what you were looking for?

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. -Edmond Burke-

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I think I know what you were asking, and I think it’s possible. Use Windows Explorer to open & explore the drive that FH is using for the files. Do not use the “Restore Personal Files” option on the file history window. Do a search for the file name that you are looking for and that file will display each & every version that was ever backed up, with time/date stamps. Delete each one that you don’t want any longer to be in the file history.

Was this what you were looking for?

That was my first suggestion (though testing by a rename of a folder). But looking at the link in post #3 how would the catalogue of all the saves be affected? The simple question is: have you tried it and did it cause any problems? I just didn’t want to risk it.

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I did try it. I chose a file that had only 6 versions in file history. I deleted 1 of the versions in windows explorer, then ran “restore personal files” from the control panel. It did indicate that there had been 6 versions, but when I got to that version in the file history window, I got the message, “This version can’t be previewed because it wasn’t found in your file history”. So, it seems that if you delete a version of a file in windows explorer, file history still knows that the version was there but can no longer find it to display when using the file history in control panel. At some point, the file history database may correct itself as if that version never existed. But, it doesn’t seem to do any harm by deleting the file/s in windows explorer.

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. -Edmond Burke-

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I think I know what you were asking, and I think it’s possible. Use Windows Explorer to open & explore the drive that FH is using for the files. Do not use the “Restore Personal Files” option on the file history window. Do a search for the file name that you are looking for and that file will display each & every version that was ever backed up, with time/date stamps. Delete each one that you don’t want any longer to be in the file history.

Was this what you were looking for?

Yes, in part. I know it can be done but if done as you’ve explained, does manually deleting a file impact FH negatively in any way. The link “access-mdb” provided in his 12-31-16 response was quite detailed and beyond my comprehension but it clearly indicates FH does some extensive cataloging. So, is their an system impact when you manually delete a file in the FH backup folder without the system making a corresponding change to this cataloging???? I hope that’s clear.

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Thanks edn, it wasn’t something that I wanted to do. Trouble is, the one folder I want to trim has thousands of versions and that affects the main folder as well. It takes a long time to go back. I think I’ll just have to do a cleanup – at least I know it keeps at least one backup, however old.

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Thanks edn3005 for taking the time and running a test.
What you found makes sense. Post #3 (12-31-16 by “access-mdb”) provides a link to a comprehensive analysis of FH. It clearly shows FH does extensive cataloging of the files involved in its backup process. The fact your received a “…wasn’t found in your file history” message makes sense; a file was deleted manually but FH’s cataloging wasn’t updated by this manual deletion. I agree with you that FH database will probably correct itself. In my opinion, that should occur when the file date of the manually deleted file is older than the retention age specified during FH Clean-up routine. Now the only question that remains, is there an error message or problem when FH clean-up routine tries to delete a file from it’s catalog that can’t be found?

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