What files must be backed up?

D

DeonH

Senior Member
Joined
Feb 21, 2005
Messages
677
Reaction score
41
Hi.

Windows 10 64-bit

I have bought myself a NAS about two years ago. I am now revisiting everything needed to be backed up.

What files is a must to have backups off? I know about docs, music, pictures and so on.
What files in my AppData folder are a must? I have noticed that there are almost hundreds of files in the four sub-folders I have under AppData: (Local, LocalGoogle, LocalLow & Roaming).

Thank you very much.
 
Besides the my documents stuff look at email if you use a email client like outlook etc, contacts & bookmarks.
 
DeonH said:
Hi.

Windows 10 64-bit

I have bought myself a NAS about two years ago. I am now revisiting everything needed to be backed up.

What files is a must to have backups off? I know about docs, music, pictures and so on.
What files in my AppData folder are a must? I have noticed that there are almost hundreds of files in the four sub-folders I have under AppData: (Local, LocalGoogle, LocalLow & Roaming).

Thank you very much.
Click to expand...

It's usualy just the folders under your user profile like you mentioned.

Since Outlook 2010 the email folder is stored under my documents and they did away with the NK2 file.
If you upgraded from a earlier version of Outlook or if you are still actively using an older version you'd want to backup the /Microsoft/Outlook folders under /appdata/local/ and /appdata/roaming/ to get the pst and NK2 files.
NK2 stores your contact history, the contacts that pop up while typing the email address while composing a new email.

For the rest you'll have to do some homework per app. I almost never find anything in there that needs backing up.

SARS Easyfile for example stores its database in appdata.
Google Earth stores your saved locations in there.
Google Chrome stores bookmarks and setting in there but if you sign into google and use the sync feature you don't need to worry about this.
 
Thank you very much for your help. I think I have backed up way to much folders under my user profile. I gree that docs, music, pictures, e-mail and so on are the most important. My browsers' bookmarks are also backed up by cloud, so I think I am fine.

Thank you once again.
 
DeonH said:
Thank you very much for your help. I think I have backed up way to much folders under my user profile. I gree that docs, music, pictures, e-mail and so on are the most important. My browsers' bookmarks are also backed up by cloud, so I think I am fine.

Thank you once again.
Click to expand...

Then you're fine.
 
Arthur said:
I find it much easier to just image the entire volume. That way the entire system can be restored in minutes.
Click to expand...

Is that supported by Win10's native tool?

When setting it up seems they moved to a per folder system now.
 
Arthur said:
I find it much easier to just image the entire volume. That way the entire system can be restored in minutes.
Click to expand...

I do exactly the same thing. Its a much more concise backup that can be restored to bare metal in most instances or mounted and browsed from another machine.
 
SauRoNZA said:
Is that supported by Win10's native tool?

When setting it up seems they moved to a per folder system now.
Click to expand...

Did that after a W10 upgrade. The tool is still there, just a bit better hidden away now.
 
Back up all your important save files like Pictures, Videos, Music, Documents (MS Office, TurboTax, etc) But you should always have these types of files backed u
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X