Bothering about how to delete old backup files in windows 10 and free up some space? If so you got it all here. In this post you’ll be reading about 2 ways how you can delete old backup files in windows 10 and actually free up space for your new applications. So read the full article to find out how you can do so in two simple ways.
The guide covers steps of two different methods to delete backup files in Windows 10.
Method 1: use file history cleanup to delete old backup files
Method 2: use command prompt to delete old backup files
A file is needed to be backed up when we store copies of our critical system and personal files on a hard drive or any other auxiliary storage device, such as an external backup or flash drive. The notion of creating backups is a critical step in the computer maintenance process to protect our data in the event of system failure or file corruption.
Here’s the 1st method to delete backup files in Windows 10, you can do it by the use of file history cleanup.
Steps to Delete Old Backup Files Using File History Cleanup
The backup files can be easily deleted using the file history cleanup. I’ll be stating you the steps on how to delete backup files in windows 10 with File History Cleanup as follows:
Step 1: First of all Open Control Panel. Click the System & Security option, then click on File History icon. You’ll see the file history dialog box open up.
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Step 2: Next, Click on the Advanced settings link on the left side of the window.
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Step 3: Click on the Clean up versions link in the Versions section of the window.
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Step 4: To delete, Select the time period of versions which you want to delete, and then click on Clean up.
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Step 5: Once the cleanup completed successfully, click on OK.
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While for the 2nd method to delete backup files in Windows 10, you can do it by the use of Command Prompt.
Steps to Delete Old Backup Files Using Command Prompt.
The backup files can be deleted using the Command Prompt. However, it might seem cranky at the beginning but it isn’t that tough a job. I shall be stating you the steps on how to delete backup files in windows 10 with Command Prompt as follows:
Step 1: First thing to do is press Win + X keys to open the Command Prompt in windows 10.
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Step 2: type down and execute the following commands for the time period of versions you want to delete, and the press the Enter key.
For All But the Latest One
- FhManagew.exe -cleanup 0
- FhManagew.exe -cleanup 0 -quiet
For Older than 1 Month
- FhManagew.exe -cleanup 30
- FhManagew.exe -cleanup 30 -quiet
For Older than 3 Month
- FhManagew.exe -cleanup 90
- FhManagew.exe -cleanup 90 -quiet
For Older than 6 Month
- FhManagew.exe -cleanup 180
- FhManagew.exe -cleanup 180 -quiet
For Older than 1 Year (Default)
- FhManagew.exe -cleanup 365
- FhManagew.exe -cleanup 365 -quiet. Or with -quiet command
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Step 3: If the system doesn’t find any versions of your files which were older than that, click on Close, and then repeat Step 2 mentioned above using a shorter time period if you like.
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Step 4: Once the cleanup completed successfully, click on OK.
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Tip for the day: if as a second thought you wanna have your backups before deleting them. You may choose to save the backups in any of internal hard drive, or an externally connected drive (USB drive), or even to a drive on a network in the Control Panel.
I hope that you were able to relate to what I wrote and got fruitful results. For more such tips and tricks stay connected and keep reading my posts.
