Does File History only backup Changed/Added Files or All Files it's monitoring?

[bradavon]

Windows 10 Pro v1803

I'm sure when I first used File History with Windows 8.x or Windows 10 (can't quite remember) it backed up everything then backed up news files plus copies of changed files.

I noticed the other day loads of files were missing in the File History backup (e.g. many files the Documents folder). I "Turned Off" File History, Deleted the FileHistory folder from my backup drive entirely and also deleted this folder:

C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\FileHistory

I restarted the PC and setup File History again. I'm happy with the Default folders it backs up (I Exclude my Music and Video folders).

As far as I can see it's working but it never did an initial backup of the all the folders it's monitoring and as I've not changed much in my Documents folder the past few days it's empty in the File History "Restore personal files" window.

If I change a file this gets backed up and if I add a file this gets backed up. But it's a pretty useless backup tool if it doesn't do the initial backup of everything. It's only useful if I need to Revert to an older version of a file that's changed since I enabled File History.

OneDrive is also backing up the same folders to the cloud too, not sure if this conflicts with File History.

Thanks

[bradavon]

Any ideas anyone?

 

Thanks