Backup Software with File History

BackupChain®: Backup Software and Toolset Made for IT Professionals

If you are looking for backup solution for Windows that offers a configurable file history backup? Then check out BackupChain, the most comprehensive backup software with file history functionality for Windows, trusted in over 80 countries, 100% made in USA. In file history mode (called version backup in BackupChain) BackupChain performs incremental backup by default and skips over old files. At the file-level, only new and changed files are processed and file history of each folder and file is tracked and preserved at each backup. This allows you to restore any file or folder to a specific point in time, with the correct file version that existed at that point in time.

This clever mechanism makes it unnecessary to copy the same files over and over again, and is also very efficient with storage. Because only new and changed files are being processed, incremental backups take very little time to complete and use only the minimum of storage. There are lots of ways to configure your file history requirements: you can even configure separate file history lengths depending on file type. For example, you could keep all Microsoft Word files forever, but only the last five Quickbooks databases.

And, BackupChain can do a lot more than just track file histories; check out our home page for the entire feature set and download the full version for a test drive! Apart from having a unique feature set, the BackupChain solution also offers unique “white glove” technical support. Depending on your preferences, we can help you set up, monitor, and recover backups through remote assistance.

How Does BackupChain’s File History Backup Work?

File versioning is basically a mechanism to preserve older revisions of files. For example, if were working on a Microsoft Excel document for weeks, there would be many backups run every day or perhaps even more often. Every time BackupChain detects that you made a file change, it immediately back it up. Depending on your needs and available storage, you could keep the entire file history forever, or just the last X versions, it’s up to you. If you ever need to restore, you can always need to access the available file history and pick the version of the document you need, or restore an entire folder or an entire hard disk to a specific point in time.
File history backup software can be used on on all kinds of storage devices and applications, such as NAS devices, external hard drives, cloud storage, and applications such as Microsoft Office, Visual Studio, PowerShell, etc.

BackupChain also uses file history backup to track changes made to SQL databases, and virtual machine backups, for example.

How to Set up File History Backup on Windows 11 or Windows Server 2025

Folder Selection

The first step is to select all source folders. You could select an entire drive, network share, or specific folders or just single files.

Define File History Backup Rules

For example, if you want to preserve the last 200 versions of each Excel document you have,  you would enter a new file history rule for *.xls or *.xlsx and set ‘number of backups’ to 200.

Optional: Add Compression and Incremental/Differential Deduplication

BackupChain can do a lot more than file history backup. You can also fine-tune how you want each type of file processed. For example, you could use compression for the *.docx Word documents but no compression for *.mp4 videos. You could enable compression and deduplication for *.vhdx virtual disks, for example.

Limit Archive Periods

Archive periods can also be specified using a time period, such as by entering ‘7 weeks’. Archive period basically means that BackupChain will keep the backup file for the specified time only, even if the original remains on disk for longer. This is particularly useful for situations where there is a legal requirement to back up a file history for a certain time frame.

Delayed Deletion

Delayed deletion is a great way to automatically clear backups of files that were deleted at the source, but with a delay. RAID, for example, copies your files and deletions from disk A to disk B without delay. That’s why it’s not really a good backup. BackupChain delays the deletion so you have time to react and restore if you accidentally delete a file or folder.

Ransomware Protection by using Delayed Deletion and File History Backup

When you combine the two features “file history backup” with “delayed deletion” you basically have a system where if the PC gets attacked by ransomware, it would generate a lot of new file versions for every file and delete the original. The delayed deletion feature would prevent clearing of the good backups in the backup folder by keeping the original if the original were deleted. The file history backup feature also preserves the original because the infected new file will be seen either as a new file or new file version. In both cases, BackupChain would not touch the old, good copy of each file. Hence, file history backup is one of the techniques you could use to protect against ransomware.

File History Backup Solution for Network Folders, QNAP, Buffalo, Synology NAS, and Cloud Storage

The process for protecting your network storage devices, such as Buffalo, Synology, and QNAP, with file history backup is identical. Simply enter the network access details for each folder in the Folders tab in BackupChain.

Summary

There is only one file history backup software available that provides compression, deduplication, and configurable rules for each type of file defined by file extension: BackupChain. Download it today and protect your documents on your PCs, network devices, and servers. You can restore files very simply by using Windows Explorer or through the software. It’s super easy to use, reliable, and trusted by customers in over 80 countries. Since 2009, we have been providing our products to an impressive list of notable companies worldwide, who value our top-notch technical support and attention to detail. Give it a try and see for yourself, the download is fully functional.