File History refuses to back up a specific subfolder

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I have Win 10 Pro version 2004.

I recently tried to restore a file from File History, and discovered that the entire subfolder in which it was located hadn’t been backed up.

I have two drives. The C drive has Windows and various programs. The D drive has most of my data. I moved various default folders (e.g., Pictures, Documents, etc.) to that drive. I have Pictures organized into several subfolders. Camera Roll, which Windows apparently creates in that folder by default, is one of them. What I discovered is that while File History has been backing up all of the other Pictures subfolders and their contents, it hasn’t been backing up Camera Roll and its contents.

I looked in Settings | Update & Security | Backup | More Options, and confirmed that the entire Pictures folder is designated for backup. Nothing is listed under “Exclude these folders.”

In order to explore the issue at little, I created a new Pictures subfolder and named it Camera Roll 2. I moved the entire contents of the original Camera Roll subfolder there, and then ran File History. It backed up the new subfolder and its contents. I then deleted the original Camera Roll folder, renamed Camera Roll 2 to Camera Roll, and ran File History again. This time the subfolder wasn’t backed up. So it appears that some setting or glitch is excluding from backup any subfolder by that specific name.

I obviously can simply proceed with a subfolder named Camera Roll 2, or whatever else, but I’d like to figure out what’s going on. Any ideas?

Thanks.

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Morty

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This is why I always use a 3rd party backup utility. When it fails to back stuff up it tells you.

All the majors have free versions that do everything you need as a standard Windows user.

cheers, Paul

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Morty, BobStr

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I had Camera Roll backed up by File History when I was using it. It is a library (rather than a folder) so it should be backed up by File History as this uses libraries as the target for the backup. However, MS appears to be allowing it to die – there doesn’t seem to have been any recent development. I stopped using it last year and now use OneDrive as this gives me backups of all my data – with previous versions. Paul is right, the free versions give you the ability to restore old versions of files, but the granularity in my view isn’t too good as it’s as only as often as you do an image.

There are backups which do continuous backups (maybe they come with your external drive), just choose one of them.

Eliminate spare time: start programming PowerShell

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BobStr

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I’ve been using Win 10 and File History for a bit over a year, and except for early issues figuring out FH’s peculiarities (for example, it apparently is willing to save all my app data, but can’t be limited to backing up only individual app data subfolders), this is the first time I’ve encountered a routine folder/file not being backed up.

If the issue is simply that MS is letting the camera roll folder die (typical of MS, in that case, to let the system continue to create that folder automatically, and use it as the default filing location for certain apps, while not backing it up anymore), then I’m not sure I see the reason to go to a 3rd party back-up.

But the implication also seems to be that FH is problematic in general. Is that so? Is there good reason to believe that FH in general isn’t dependable? In that case, I’d definitely move on to something else.

Thanks.

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BobStr wrote:

Is there good reason to believe that FH in general isn’t dependable?

Only your finding that it isn’t backing up files you need and didn’t tell you.

cheers, Paul

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Well, if that’s the only reason, is it much of a reason at all?

I could switch to another backup app, and if it failed to back up a folder or file and didn’t tell me, then I’d be in the same boat as I am now. To my mind, that raises the question of the reliability in general of FH versus other backup systems.

Seriously. If that’s not the important question, then I don’t see why it isn’t.

Thanks.

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Bob,

Consider trialling FreeFileSync; it gives you logs to report success/failure.

Zig

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BobStr

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I’ll try  it.

Thanks large.

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I just started using File History after the backup program I was using stopped working for me. Then I discovered that FH didn’t back up the Documents library. So I tried to add it as a folder. Still no luck.

So I used Macrium, made a full system backup and added an emergency restore DVD. And I went back to SyncBack Free to back up my files.

You can’t be too careful.

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