You can right click on a drive, file, or folder, and click/tap on Properties to see a Previous Versions tab.
You can right click on a drive, file, or folder, and click/tap on Show more options (Shift+F10) to see the Restore previous versions context menu. If you click/tap on the Restore previous versions context menu item, it will open the Previous Versions tab on the properties page of the drive, file, or folder.
The previous versions feature in Windows allows you to restore a previous version of files, folders, and drives that were saved or backed up as part of a restore point, File History, and/or Windows Backup.
If a file, folder, or drive was not included in a restore point, added to File History, or included in a Windows Backup, then there will not be any previous versions available for it.
This tutorial will show you how to add or remove the Previous Versions tab from the properties page and Restore previous versions from the context menu for all users in Windows 10 and Windows 11.
File History regularly backs up versions of your files in the Documents, Music, Pictures, Videos, and Desktop folders and the OneDrive files available offline on your PC. Over time, you’ll have a complete history of your files. If the originals are lost, damaged, or deleted, you can restore them. You can also browse and restore different versions of your files. For example, if you want to restore an older version of a file (even if it wasn’t deleted or lost), you can browse through a timeline, select the version you want, and restore it.
File History only backs up copies of files that are in all folders and subfolders inside your account’s C:\Users\<username> folder. If you have files or folders elsewhere that you want backed up, you can add them to one of these folders.
File History takes advantage of a feature built into the NTFS file system called the change journal to keep track of changes to files. Essentially, when any change is made to a file or folder on your hard disk, the change journal is updated with a description of the change and the name of the file or folder. So to determine which files need to be backed up, File History simply consults the NTFS change journal. Using the change journal is fast and efficient and won’t use up a lot of system resources like running a conventional backup routine does.
This tutorial will show you how to restore previous versions (copies) of files and folders from File History in Windows 10 and Windows 11.
OneDrive is free online storage that comes with your Microsoft account. Save your files online to OneDrive and you will be able to view, browse, upload, and share them from any PC, tablet, or phone.
OneDrive is built into Windows 10 by default, and you can find your OneDrive files through File Explorer.
The version history feature included with OneDrive allows you to see and restore older versions of your files stored in OneDrive using Windows File Explorer, Mac Finder, and Microsoft 365 web apps. Version history works with all file types, including Microsoft 365 files, PDFs, CAD files, photos, videos, and more.
This tutorial will show you how to view, restore, download, and delete previous versions of files saved on OneDrive in Windows 10 and onedrive.live.com.