Keeping track of files on a common machine is a tedious task; especially if you are not able to find who accessed your files and when. Common machines induce a very common problem of files being read, changed, modified, or even deleted without your knowledge. But, you can know who accessed your files, using SoftPerfect File Access Monitor tool. It is a freeware that monitors access to your files & provides a detailed history of who read, deleted, moved, wrote or changed files.
File Access Monitor for Windows PC
File Access Monitor is basically a simple file monitoring tool that monitors access to your files and provides a detailed history of who read, wrote and manipulated them. You can use File Access Monitor on a file server to track the network users’ activity, as well as on a local computer where it will track local users’ file access. You will find it similar to the Windows auditing features. However, the tool is much easier to use, and it provides flexible reporting capabilities and notifications.
What does the SoftPerfect File Access Monitor do?
- Monitors file actions: creating, moving, deleting, reading and writing to files.
- Records remote user access to shared folders.
- Keeps track of local users as to what files they access.
- Features a powerful filter system to include or exclude certain activities.
- Self-contained – doesn’t require a database server alongside.
Keep track of who read & changed your files
Download the File Access Monitor tool from the website. It takes very few moments to download the tool, as it’s very small-sized software. Once downloaded, run the setup file and install the tool. The application needs you to specify the hostname and password before you start. Keep the option as ‘localhost’ if you want to monitor your own system. Then there is no need to set up the password as well. However, you can access the data on other computers as well, by providing the IP address and password for the same.
The user interface of the tool is simple, small, and easy to navigate.
You can see all files and folders on your system in the tool.
If you want to see who accesses your files and then simply click on the respective files. You can see the statistics in the left-hand side window. You can see the details such as Operation (what was done to the file), User (who used it), Process (what was used to perform the action) and Time (when it was accessed).
The ribbon on the top of the SoftPerfect File Access Monitor tool consists of the tabs such as File, View, Tools, and Help.
Under File tab, you can see ‘Connect…’ in the drop-down menu. Using this, you can connect to another machine or host that is connected to your network by specifying the host name or the IP address. You can access ‘Connect…’ function directly from the tab given in the second line of menu ribbon.
If you click on the ‘Settings’, you will see the following window. You can change the settings for Storage, E-mail, Filter and Operations. You can even change the color codes for the actions and the output. You can access ‘Settings’ function directly from the tab given in the second line of menu ribbon. You can also set the tool to send regular emails regarding the changes in the files if you don’t have enough time to check by yourself.
Under ‘View’ tab, you can see a drop-down menu consisting of ‘Filter’ and ‘Refresh’.
The ‘Filter’ function gives you the ability to see all files based on the ‘Operation’ performed on it. You can access ‘Filter’ function directly from the tab given in the second line of the menu ribbon. The same goes for the ‘Refresh’ function.
The next tab in the top menu ribbon is ‘Tools’, where you can perform two functions of the SoftPerfect File Access Monitor tool.
You can monitor the file access in a chronological format by clicking on ‘Chonological’. Just like several other functions, you have a shortcut for this function as well in the second line of the menu ribbon. Here too, you can view files based on various filters such as Operations, User, Process and Time.
Apart from these, the tool has several other functions, which you can learn about from its user manual.
Features of File Access Monitor
File Access Monitor has minimum stuff to configure and has a simple and neat user interface. The functions are very straightforward and easy to navigate. Shortcuts for frequently used functions also make the tool user-friendly. It is possible to monitor the files on your machine as well as another machine with just a single tool. The color codes used in the statistics make it easy to understand the operation performed on a file, in a single glance.
The filters make it easy to monitor the file access and also if there are any security breaches. It is possible to monitor the modifications done to a certain file during a specified time due to the filters. You can also set the tool to send regular emails regarding the changes in the files if you don’t have enough time to check by yourself.
Just a small inconvenience caused in the tool is that you need to refresh the tool to view the changes made recently. Apart from this small inconvenience, everything in the tool is easy to operate.
On a concluding, File Access Monitor is a small tool but consists of many powerful features. These features let you view all file modifications performed on your system as well as on the server. Besides, you can also see who has performed these modifications (User) or eve the process that performed the operations.
You can download the freeware from its home page.
Is it possible to track who accessed a file and when?
Yes, it is possible to track who accessed a file and when. No matter whether you use Windows 11, Windows 10, or any other version, you can take the help of File Access Monitor. It tracks all the changes along with the information about who accessed a file on your computer and when. Whether it is by your own account or some other user account, it logs everything.
How can I track who changed a file?
To track who changed a file on Windows, you need to turn a software earlier. It is called Free Access Monitor, and as the name denotes, it is a freeware. You can track all the changes made by you or any other user as the dates. It is fully compatible with Windows 10 as well as Windows 11.
That’s all! Hope this tool helped.
