Excluding Folders from File History
You might have noticed that by default File
History makes a copy of Libraries, Desktop, Contacts, and Favorites.
What if you do not want to make a copy of all the contents of one or
more of these locations? Maybe you do not have much space on your
external drive or network location and do not want to make copies of
unimportant files. You have the ability to easily exclude folders:
1. From the Start screen right-click on the screen.
2. Click the All Apps button that appears on the lower-right corner of the screen.
3. Select Control Panel.
4. Click System and Security.
5. Click File History.
6. Click Exclude Folders.
7. Click Add.
8. You now can browse
your drives and select the folder that you want to exclude from File
History copies. Once you have the folder selected click Select Folder.
9. The path to your excluded folder is now displayed in the Excluded Folders and Libraries box (see Figure 5).
Figure 5. Excluded folders and libraries
10. Click Save Changes and exit out of the Control Panel.
Using File History’s Advanced Features
With Windows 8 you have some, might I say,
very cool advanced features with File History that enable you to
configure your file copy strategy to best fit your needs and
environment (see Figure 6). These options include
• Save Copied Files—Allows
you to set how often your files are copied. After the initial run, each
successive copy will be incremental. This means that only new or
modified files will be saved.
• Size of Offline Cache—Configure
how much of your disk will be used to copy files while disconnected
from your external drive or shared network space. (Will sync up once
connected.)
• Keep Saved Versions—This enables you to keep file versions for as long as you specify.
Figure 6. File History Advanced Settings
What are file versions? Basically every time
you update a file and save it you create another version of the file.
With File History you are able to keep versions of your files, which
means if you accidentally save a file with incorrect data you can go
back to the previous version, or even the version before that. You need
to be careful and consider the amount of disk space you have available
for your file copies. If you are constantly updating your files and
have versioning set to Forever you can see how this fills up space
quickly.
Choosing How Many Versions of a File to Save
You might want to save versions of files for
a maximum of three months (the final decision is really up to you). To
do that, follow these steps:
1. From the Start screen right-click on the screen.
2. Click the All Apps button that appears on the lower-right corner of the screen.
3. Select Control Panel.
4. Click System and Security.
5. Click File History.
6. Click Advanced Settings.
7. Click the down arrow next to Keep Saved Versions.
8. Select 3 Months or your desired length of time from the drop-down menu.
9. Click Save Changes.
