How to Backup and Clean Your Windows PC

If you’re selling your Windows computer or passing it on to someone else, you’ll want to clean everything first. Or you might want to get rid of several years of excess data and start over from scratch.

The good news is that cleaning and reinstalling Windows is much easier than it used to be. I’m old enough to remember when this involved hours of swapping files, installing discs, and hours spent putting programs, emails, and files back into place. Thanks to the cloud and online apps, it can now be done in less than an hour.

Backing up everything in advance is vital, even if you’re planning to leave your personal files in place (which Windows allows). When planning a backup, in addition to your personal files, think about other data like local media libraries and saved games (if you’re a gamer). And while most apps can simply be re-downloaded from the web, it’s worth double-checking what you’ve installed to make sure they’re still available.

You have several options for backing up Windows data. In fact, the safest option is to have not one backup, but two: otherwise, as soon as something happens to the original data, you will be in the precarious position of having just one copy of your important files again.

A combination of cloud storage and local storage is usually a good bet. Whether you want to use Microsoft’s own OneDrive or third-party options like Google Drive or Dropbox, you can set up important folders to be constantly synced across the web. As soon as you make changes to your PC, the synced files will be updated online.

You will be asked if you want to sync your files with OneDrive when you first set up your Windows operating system. If you chose to do this and want to make changes later:

• Search “OneDrive” in the Start menu and select the top OneDrive result to see your OneDrive folder in File Explorer. You can also click the OneDrive icon on the right side of the taskbar and select Open folder.
• Right-click the OneDrive folder in the left navigation pane and choose OneDrive > Settings.
• Under Sync and backupYou can choose which parts of your system (like the Desktop folder and saved screenshots) will be managed by OneDrive.
• If you don’t want to use OneDrive for your backups, click Account > Unlink this PC.

You can also go to the general Windows settings page and click Accounts > Windows Backup to choose which folders to back up and include various Windows settings (like the wallpaper you set and your Wi-FI passwords) as well as files.

If you prefer a third-party cloud storage backup option, the process will vary depending on your choice. In the case of Google Drive, for example, you can download the Windows client from here. After logging into your Google account, you can specify where you want your Google Drive folder to be located on the system and which files you want to sync.

To set up your Google Drive backup, find the icon in the bottom right corner of your Windows system tray. Right click on the icon, click on the gear icon and Preferences.

• Open My computer and click Add folder to choose folders on your system, outside of the designated Google Drive folder, to back up (such as your Windows desktop).
• Open Google Drive to access the Google Drive folder on your PC and decide whether files will be mirrored (always saved locally) or streamed (only downloaded when needed).
• Click the gear icon (top right) to change the location of the Google Drive folder on your system and manage settings like screenshot backups.

Windows even has its own local storage backup option, but it’s well hidden: search for “file history” in the Start menu to find it. The tool will help you move files from selected folders on your PC to an external drive regularly – and if you buy an external hard drive or NAS drive, it will also come with backup software included, giving you another option.

There are two paths you can take when resetting Windows: you can choose to wipe everything and start over from scratch, or reset the operating system’s core files and applications while leaving your personal files intact.

The former is clearly more comprehensive, but the latter (assuming you’re maintaining the computer) saves you the trouble of having to recover all your data later. If you are troubleshooting a problem with your PC, try a “soft” reset first to see if that resolves the issue before doing a hard reset.

Whichever route you take, there’s another option down the road: download the latest version of Windows from Microsoft’s servers or use the installation files already on your PC. The cloud option typically takes longer because you’re waiting for 4GB of data to download, but this means you have the latest version of Windows – you won’t need to apply any additional updates.

Here’s how to get started:

• Open it settings in the Start menu and go to System.
• Scroll down and select Recovery > Restart PC.
• This is where you choose between Keep my files or Remove everything.
• After that, you will see the screen to choose Cloud download or Local reinstallation.

Before reaching the final Restart option, which actually starts the reset itself, you can review your choices: click Change settings if you want to do it differently. Please note that if you chose Remove everythingselecting Change settings also allows you to choose Clear datawhich is not done by default – if you want to enable this, change the toggle button from No for Yes.

This “cleaning” process means that all existing data will be overwritten, rather than just marked as deleted. It’s a security feature. With a normal reset, it is very difficult for even experts to recover any deleted data, but when the drive is wiped clean, it is practically impossible. It takes longer (up to a few hours), but it’s worth doing if you’re selling or disposing of your computer.

With all of that out of the way, the Windows reset process begins. How long it will take depends on how much storage your system has and how much of it needs to be erased, so you may want to do something else for a while. When finished, you will be asked to log in to Windows or configure the operating system again.