How to fix File History backup errors in Windows 10

File History is pretty cool. It allows you to automatically and incrementally backup all your files. That means smaller backup sizes, easy restore if your puter crashes, and it's literally 'set it and forget it'. The trouble is that File History likes to crash - it just stops backup up your stuff. There are tons of solutions out there, but this one is the ONLY one I have ever found to work. It's a bit tedious, but who cares when it's free and easy to fix?!

An excellent USB 3 backup drive (affiliate link):

Chapters:
0:00 Intro
0:30 Error messages
1:36 The Solution!!
3:40 Problematic files
4:55 BONUS Tip

[ScottiesTech]

To be notified of new vids, be sure to subscribe ON MY WEBSITE! It actually works...
E-mail: Subscribe box in the right column
Push: Click the red bell in the lower right corner

[karlmadsen]

Even though the imaginary Cletus is annoying...and even though going through all those files is a little like sifting the beach looking for that one special grain of sand....this is very useful information. Systematic. Logical. Effective. Although even thinking of actually doing this gives me the cramps. Well done.

[alexmckenzie]

Scottie - you are a genius. I haven't tried this yet, but I'll give it a go and hope it works.

[RickOShay]

W10 - shadow copies / file history is fantastic - I store file history (shadow copies) every hour for certain folders. I'm a games programmer / modder and this feature this has saved me numerous times in the past few years when I accidentally overwrote a file. Personally I've never had problems with File History / backups other than running out of space and having to clear old backups. But using standard chars in files names and limiting file names to reasonable lengths is just good practice in general.

[donlee]

Great advice. This helped me. Thank you for taking the time to put this together.

[JohnSmith-kbre]

"It encounters one troublesome file and decides to take the rest of the day off"

Hey, on the bright side, it's a very relatable software.

[markgreenbaum]

Apparently the "trouble" is in My Documents and that's no small folder. But at least your idea helped narrow down the problem. Thanks.
UPDATE: While I cannot say for certain, I had a few documents that had the letters " ü " and " ß " and they may have been the culprit. There was also an "auto.inf" file that I deleted.

[gregf]

And this is one example in an infinite list of reasons why I am glad I no longer use Windows _ever_ ; It's Unix-based MacOS (which has issues, it has to be said) or Linux (with which I've never had any) all the way now, and has been for years.

[perrymathias]

thanks for sharing the backup solution.

[bozomartin]

I just got a 1TB Seagate portable drive and tried to do a backup and first got message that "File History does not recognize this drive." So, ??? Nevertheless, I tried to proceed and the backup process proceeded. When it was over, I got a message that the backup skipped 3 files and it gave me names and locations of those files (and they are files I do not really care about) but when I tried to go to file locations given, they do not exist, (e.g., Error:(STATUS_WAIT_3 (0x80070003)). There is no "OneDrive" folder under "systemprofile (and, yes, I have set up to show hidden files. My brand new drive shows that I have I have 747GB of 931GB free, so something is taking up 184 GB but when I go into the new drive and click Properties on the folders, each folder shows they contain 0 (zero) bytes of memory. So weird, what could be the deal with this. I thought I would just go and delete those skipped files and solve issue but the files skipped do not appear to exist and, even if they did, they do not have characteristics you describe. Anyway, any help would be appreciated; and was concerned about fact that initial reaction was that the drive was not even recognized by File History.

[bluedude]

Following your advice, I went through all the folders, changed all suspicious looking names etc. None of it worked. Eventually, the problem seemed to lay with the USB hub, since attaching the drive directly to my laptop solved the issue...

[markglenn]

I find this backup to be super buggy add a drive only finds my C: drive I have 2 other drives the files I want to backup are on the other drive. Next issue when i remove all the useless folders I don't want to backup windows keeps re-adding them typical MS mess. Anyone have a workaround please share it ?

[kimchee]

Could it also detected one of multiple external drives I no longer have? Why can't Windows give a hint as which file it had problems with? This like a good size program without a debugger or trace. Add to the frustration Windows would not let me go back to any restore points. Thanks for the upload, this video maybe my last resort, very helpful.

[debbys-abqnm]

I just manually back up every few days, copying important to a directory (that I've named after the day's date & time) on an external drive. While it's not automatic, I have complete control. If anything goes wrong (like a refusal to copy something), I can use the tips about how the file is named to try to solve the problem 😊

[bretthawton]

Just tried to do this in Windows 11 and I can find the same "Back-up" settings page that was in Windows 10. Any idea where Microsoft hid it?

[Canadapt]

Hi, my File History is backing up just fine but when I go to 'clean up versions' I get the error message "Could not clean up file history data, Element not found" How do I get past this? It is essential that I be able to clean up versions. Thanks, Michael

[magingi]

Any idea why picture files(thousands) suddenly lost all file names, which then became numeric file names, meaning the photo descriptions were lost? Was using a Canon camera picture viewer, but somehow...maybe something Windows the original file names void. Tried many many processes to restore original file names to no avail. Windows ten is the worst. Thanks.

[royd]

or FastCopy. It completes the backup and tells you which files it didn't like.

[StockGoUp]

Pretty annoying that I have to worry about a files name messing up my backup process

[FungiGamer]

Thank you, I think I’m on the road to pinpoint whats screwing up my backups.

What’s the windows 8.1 equivalent of the More Options page that shows the folders affected?