How exactly does File History work in Windows 10 and later?

Question

I have a spare HDD to dedicated to storing File History versions of my documents, pictures and so on. I've reasonably assumed that whenever I edit a file and save changes to it, then File History will create a new backup version of the file, but I've tested that out and it seemingly doesn't work that way. Looking at the FH settings suggests that saved copies of files are created every hour (or whatever interval is chosen) and not when the file's content is changed. Can anyone confirm that's correct? If it is, then File History is extremely primitive and badly named.

Basically, my question is: does File History create a new "historic" version of a file as soon as that file is modified/changed or does it create a new version on a timed schedule (say an hour) if Windows detects that the file has changed since the last time it checked?

Answer 1

So essentially Windows 10 File History is a glorified scheduled backup rather than version control on a file that changes.

I feel the name File History is a misnomer as it doesn't give you a file's history, merely it's backup history.

I've since set the File History backup frequency to 10 minutes (the lowest setting) in order to get some semblance of a true file history, but it'd be preferable if it worked like the name says.

I wonder if there are any third-party apps that perform a "proper" file version history function?