Effortless Auto Backup: How to Backup Your PC on Windows 11
Automatic backup, as the name suggests, is a type of backup of your files in the system that is done automatically, the human does not interfere in the process or interfere very little in the process.
It is one of the best strategies to protect your files and system against software problems, malware attacks, hardware failure, etc.
As backup has many benefits, but after some time, you may encounter the message “Your disk is full“. How can this problem be solved?
Solutions to backup disk full
1.Set automatic backups to run in the way of incremental or differential backup.
Incremental backup backs up data that has changed since the last incremental or full backup.
But in differential backup of changed data based on the last backup copy, it prepares the full copy of the backup.
Fortunately, both of them can help save hard disk space taken by backup images.
2. Manage backup space with the backup tool you choose.
In Windows 11, you need reliable backup tools to perform the automatic backup process.
Also, by using these tools, you can automatically delete the support versions that are obsolete and free up your disk space.
Fortunately, the backup programs used on this page not only help you manage hard disk space but also help you create automatic backups. Read on to get details.
In Windows 11, there are three built-in expressions that you can use to schedule automatic backups.
Method 1:Backup files to OneDrive automatically
Microsoft provides a cloud service called OneDrive. OneDrive allows you to store your photos and files in the cloud and access them anywhere and on any device.
Below are the steps for automatic backup in OneDrive:
1. Go to the Settings.
2. Click on Start.
3. Select System then, click Storage in the Settings window.
4. On the Storage settings page, select Advanced storage settings.
5. Choose Backup options under Advanced storage settings.
6. On the Backup options settings page, select Sign in to OneDrive and enter your OneDrive account.
7. You should continue with the setup wizard.
By default, your OneDrive folder is located in C:\Users\Username\OneDrive. If you’d like to save OneDrive files on another drive, select Change location to change it.
8. When you see Your OneDrive is ready for you, select Open my OneDrive folder to get to your OneDrive folder.
9. Drop and drag or copy and paste PC files/folders into the OneDrive folder, and they will be automatically synced to the OneDrive website.
Note: In the cloud, you need to edit the files in the OneDrive folder to sync changes from your PC. Also, if you edit the files in their original location, such as a document, the changes won’t sync.
Method 2: Auto backup user files via File History
File History allows you to back up files to an external hard drive or network share and restore them when the originals are deleted, lost, or deleted.
For automatic backup with history file, follow the steps below:
1. Connect an external hard drive or USB drive to your computer properly.
2. Go to Backup options as you do in Method 1.
3. Select the Add a drive button to choose the drive you just connected. You can also select a network drive as backup destination.
4. A new heading named Automatically back up my files appears, and the switch is automatically turned on.
Select More options under the switch.
5. On the next page, select Back up now to run your first backup.
Method 3: Backup system and files on a schedule
Windows 11 backup and restore will help you a lot to create automatic backups. Also, in addition to backing up folders, and files, Backup and Restore, allows you to create a system image.
How to schedule an automatic backup using Backup and Restore is described below. Follow the steps:
1. Go to Backup options as you do in Method 1.
2. Select Go to Backup and Restore.
3. In the Backup and Restore window, select Set up backup.
4. Click on where you want to save your backup and select Next. You can choose a local/external hard drive or a network location.
5. Click on Let me choose to create a custom backup and select Next.
6. Click on your desired items to be backed up and select Next. You can choose whether to include a system image in the backup as per your need.
7. Review your backup settings and select Save settings and run backup.
Best free automatic backup software for Windows 11
In addition to the built-in Windows backup tools, there are other easy backup tools that you can use to easily back up your files and folders in the system.
We recommend you use a backup tool such as AOMEI Backupper Standard.
In the bottom part, we mention two necessary points about this software.
1. It allows you to save backups to various locations, such as local disk, external hard drive, USB pen drive, and NAS device. You are also allowed to backup files to OneDrive, Google Drive, and Dropbox, etc.
2. It offers different backup types to meet your different needs. They are Partition Backup, System Backup, File Backup, and Disk Backup.
Follow the instructions below to perform automatic system backup via AOMEI Backupper:
1.Download and install this free automatic backup software. Load up AOMEI Backupper, select Backup and click System Backup.
To backup individua folders/files, you may choose File Backup.
2. This program will automatically select system partitions as sources. Just choose a destination path to store the system image.
3. Select Schedule Backup in the left bottom.
4. Turn on Enable Schedule Backup to choose a backup frequency for your backup. Weekly, Monthly, Daily and modes are offered for free.
5. In the Schedule window, select Backup Scheme from the left panel.
You can see Incremental Backup is clicked by default as the backup method. If you’d like to use Differential Backup, edition upgrade is needed.
Also, Enable Automatic Backup Cleanup is available in higher editions.
There are 4 cleanup rules available in total, including, By time “daily/weekly/monthly”, By space and By quantity.
6. After all the settings, select Start Backup > Add the schedule and start backup now to proceed.
Last Words
In this article, 3 methods for automatic backup in Windows 11 were presented. By following the steps, you can easily backup the folders and files in your system and not worry about losing your data.
Also, compared with Windows built-in backup tools, AOMEI Backupper offers more advanced backup solutions, such as splitting an image file, creating a disk image, compressing, etc.
Have you used the methods mentioned in this article?
What other methods do you know for an automatic backup of Windows 11?
