Need File History Path

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My C drive is shrinking (free space wise).

The bulk of it is File History.

I want to get there and do some pruning, preferably via File Explorer.

What is the exact path?

Mel

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My C drive is shrinking (free space wise).

The bulk of it is File History.

I want to get there and do some pruning.

What is the exact path?

Mel

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If you’re running out of HD space, you might be best to reinstall Windows, and to do this while you still have sufficient free disk space to do the reinstall.  That is important.  By re-installing from fresh, I was able to “recover” nearly 50 GB on drive space on my 128 GB Surface Pro 3.

I know that’s not exactly what you asked, but I thought that my experience might be of help.

Dell E5570 Latitude, Intel Core i5 6440@2.60 GHz, 8.00 GB - Win 10 Pro

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Well, that would be a last resort.

I would wipe out File History before that.

 

I do have regular image backups too

 

Mel

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As I recall, 0my backup program decided one day that file history was a good addition and automatically installed it on an external hard drive. I eventually decided that it took up too much room and deleted it in favor of the backup process I already had in place. So, if it was installed on C: you can probably search the drive and find where it is stored. Consider an external drive for storage so you have more flexibility and probably better protection from hackers.

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Googled: “Reset File History in Windows 10”

First entry is shown is from WinAero.com (a site where I get WinAero Tweaker, a topic for another post, search AskWoody for any current posts).

Used this link:

https://winaero.com/reset-file-history-windows-10/

Follow instructions on the above web page to delete old File History.

Not mentioned in this article is you should probably turn File History back on again to get the backup process started again.

Also other links to resetting/deleting old File History files using the above search phrase.

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It’s a hidden filepath for a very good reason… so you don’t fiddle with the contents manually.

The easiest and safest way to reduce the size of File History backups is by using the File History Management tool – either the GUI or commandline versions. Either will do the job of pruning for you… without risking any corruption from manual fiddling.

Have a look at the following article for further information and step-by-step instructions:

How to Cleanup Older File History Backups in Windows 10

Hope this helps…

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Look in Control Panel or search for File History in the Settings panel, you may be able to see the path to File History storage there.

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Why have you got File History on your C drive? It should be on an external drive. I didn’t think it was possible to put the backup on the same drive as the data.

Eliminate spare time: start programming PowerShell

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wavy

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Access: it most certainly did end up on my “C” drive. It probably did so silently a few months ago. I did notice my image backup files via Macrium have been increasing substantially in size for awhile.

Rick: As you’ll see below in the article Method 1 failed (error when I tried to delete older file history files) and I found a better way than Method 2.

I ended up solving the pruning problem, but not really figuring out what went wrong with File History and, in fact, would continue to go wrong if I turned it back on. For that reason, I sent Fred an email. I’ll copy it here as I appreciate all the feedback and I want to follow up.

The posts below are my posts in another W10 Forum:

 

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Fred:

Howdy. I had a strange situation that might be right up your alley, interest-wise.
Here are my posts from a Windows Forum.
Hopefully it makes sense. Basically, I noticed that my main drive’s free space kept shrinking. I traced it to File History.

Here are my posts. I can add the intervening posts, if needed.
Basically, I ended up resolving the issue, with no clue what the cause was.

Mel

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My C drive is shrinking (free space wise).

The bulk of it is File History.

I want to get there and do some pruning.

What is the exact path?
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Thanks for your help, but no joy yet. I went to your how to delete old file history link. But when I tried to delete files I get the error:
“Could not clean up history data. Element not found.”
Is there a way to get into the File History folder and delete what I want?

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I used disk cleanup. No good.
My C drive has: 198 gb used and 38.9 free and it keeps shrinking. I don’t have that much.
When I go to control panel/settings/storage I find that File History is taking up 58.8 gb.

Also digging deeper I find:

c:\FileHistory\myname\laptopname\data\c\users

File history seems to be saving everything I do.

If I put the cursor over myname I get the 58.8 GB.
If I right click myname I do have the option to delete. Not sure if it will work and I’m hesitant to do that. I backup regularly and also use onedrive so I would like to delete File History, or delete all the files and then jturn it off. I admit I’m a bit afraid to proceed.

Suggestion?

…………..

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Nada. I had already run it as admin and cleaned system files (after turning off file history).
But previous to that I deleted %temp% to gain some more space. It did very little.
When I re-did disk cleanup, it said the recycle bin had I recall about 38gb. I looked in there and it was 95% the stuff I deleted from %temp%. I emptied the recycle bin via disk cleanup So now I am up to 70+ gb free space. So, that’s a relief. With file history now turned off, things should be better.

HOWEVER, the problem still remains. File history is still 58 gb. I am afraid to delete any of the telescoping folders (it continues on and on). I can look at my image backups and look at the image sizes and maybe find when this started. I could restore from an earlier backup and add back my latest needed data, but I do not want to do all the updates. I understand your theory, but when I connected my only ext HD last night, those files would have been saved there, if that was the situation. That is the only ext. drive I use.

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ALL:

Well, I did what I suggested I might do. I went into control panel/system/storage.
File history had these telescoping folders (see my earlier response).
Anyway, the subfolder MYNAME had 58+GB. I right-clicked and deleted it (it warned me about system files within the folder but I figured it was still within file history so it should not be an issue). It did delete. Rebooted. No issue.
Checked C drive and…drumroll:

Used: 108 gb

Free: 129 gb

I will probably never know what happened.

Mel

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