4 Ways to Clear the Microsoft Defender Protection History on Windows 10 & 11
Windows Defender is Microsoft’s antivirus built into your Windows PC to protect you from viruses, malware threats, and attacks. It maintains a record of its scans and actions in its Protection History folder.
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What Is the Microsoft Defender Protection History? Why Should You Clear It?
One of the best antivirus for your PC,Windows Defender keeps getting better with some powerful upgrades. The detections made by Windows Defender appear on the Protection History page—which means you can view actions that Microsoft Defender Antivirus has taken on your behalf. These would be scans done to identify and block malware and other threats. And also the recommendations (highlighted in red or yellow) for actions you should take.
You also have access to all this information in a clear and easily understandable form, including Potentially Unwanted Apps that have been removed, or key services that have been turned off. The Protection History will also show the detections that appear while performing a Windows Defender Offline scan.
Though Windows Defender keeps the history of its detections for 30 days, you can clear it before that time if you need to—for example, when a lot of scan logs have accumulated. Clearing the Protection History would help you make space on your PC and keep Defender running smoothly. Remember, you must be signed in as an administrator to clear the protection history sodo check if you have administrative rights.
Now let’s see four easy ways to clear Protection History in Windows 10 and 11.
1. How to Clear the Microsoft Defender’s Protection History Folder
you’re able to manually clear the Protection History by deleting the contents of the Service folder in the Windows Defender folder using File Explorer. Here’s how:
2. How to Clear the Microsoft Defender Protection History Using the Event Viewer
You can also manually clear the Defender Protection History via theEvent Viewer—a useful app to analyze the event logs on your device. Here’s how:
3. How to Clear the Microsoft Defender Protection History via PowerShell
What if you want the Protection History to clear automatically after a specific number of days? You can also use a PowerShell command to do that. Let’s see how to do this:
The number7at the end of the command is the number of days after which the protection history logs will be cleared. Just change that number to specify when you want the protection history to be cleared. And it will be cleared automatically.
4. How to Clear the Microsoft Defender Protection History Using the Group Policy Editor
If you have a PC with Windows 10 Pro, Windows 11 Pro, or a higher version, you’re able to also use the Group Policy Editor to clear the Defender Protection History automatically. Though there are solutions toaccess the Group Policy Editor on Windows Hometoo. But let’s see how to clear Protection History via Group Policy Editor in Windows Pro and higher versions:
Now, you won’t need to manually clear Protection History every time—the items in the scan history folder would be deleted automatically after the days you’ve specified.
Clear the Microsoft Defender Protection History Whenever You Want
If you ever want to clear Defender Protection History, you know how easy it is to do it through any of the four ways discussed above. If you would want to refer to the Protection History logs later, you can use the Save and Clear option while clearing Protection History using Event Viewer.
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