Windows 10 Choose What Folders to Back Up
Windows 10 does a pretty good job of figuring out what to back up but it is not perfect, especially if you do not store everyting on the C: drive. Consequently it is good to check what it is backing up. Pay particular attention to things like pictures, music, videos etc. things that may not be stored in Documents.
To check this,
1. Open "Settings" app, this is the gear icon that you
see when you click on the Start button in the lower left of your screen.
2.
Open "Update and Security"
3. Select "Backup" category in the menu tree on
the left.
4. Click "More options" under Back up using File History
5. Scroll down and you will see the folders that it is backing up.
6. You
have the option to add or exclude a folder. If you have a folder in the
list that does not exist, you will get a warning message about that when
you do your backup. To drop a folder click to highlight it then select
Remove.
Be certain to review the directories it is backing up. If everything is stored on the C: drive, the default, then the defaults are probably OK, but if if you have a ram disk for the C: drive and most of your files are stored on the D: drive then you have a bunch of work to do. There are a bunch of C: drive folders you are not using so you do not need to back them up and there is a lot on the D: drive that you do want to back up.
The main thing you will want to back up from the D: drive is all your stuff like Documents, Pictures etc. They are probably all in a single file with the name of your computer, SOP in my case. Just explore around and see where they are.
If you are using a D: drive for your main storage stuff, you may find that some things you want there are not. In my case my Desktop, Dropbox, iCloud Drive, Google Drive and OneDrive folders where still on the C: drive. You may not want to backup these cloud drives as they are already backed up elsewhere but you do not want to have them on your C: Drive if it is small.
To move them to the D: drive:
To move your Dropbox folder click
HERE.
Except you will have to RIGHT click the Dropbox icon.
For One Drive, click
HERE.
Desktop Folder, click
HERE.
Also keep in mind that there are things still on the C:
Drive that you will still want to back up.
Some of these things are:.
Users\User name\Favorites Your browser favorites for at least some browsers
Mozilla Thunderbird e-mail program stores the address
book and e-mails in C:\Users\User Name\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profile on my
computer but that does not seem to be consistent so be careful.
To play it
safe I backed up Users\User name\
There are probably more things but I will have to find
out the hard way.
Return to Home pageRev 1/27/17