Windows File History — the basics
Windows has a built-in, free tool for automatically backing up to a connected external drive. Plenty of people simply never discover it.
How to check whether it's on
Open Control Panel → File History
Type "File History" into Windows search and open the Control Panel result. You'll see whether the feature is turned on, and which drive it's saving backups to.
If it's off — you need a connected external drive
File History needs an external or network drive as its backup destination — it won't save to the same drive the system is on, which makes sense: a backup on the same drive doesn't protect much if that drive fails.
Worth knowing
File History saves copies of files from your libraries (Documents, Pictures, Desktop, and others) at regular intervals, letting you go back not just to a deleted file but to an earlier version of it too — useful if a document got accidentally overwritten rather than deleted.
When it's a job for IT
- You want to set this up on several company computers at once — worth standardizing the approach instead of doing it separately on each.
- The company needs to back up data from a server, not just individual computers — that's a different tool than File History.
- You're not sure whether File History is enough, or something more comprehensive is needed.
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