Systems and methods for compacting change logs using file content location identifiers. An example method may comprise: identifying a first change log record comprising an identifier of a first data structure referencing a first physical location of contents of a file before a first file system operation, the first change log record further comprising an identifier of a second data structure referencing a second physical location of the contents of the file after the file first system operation; identifying a second change log record comprising the identifier of the second data structure referencing the second physical location of the contents of the file before a second file system operation, the second change log record further comprising an identifier of a third data structure referencing a third physical location of the contents of the file after the second file system operation; and replacing the first change log record and the second change log record with a third change log record comprising the identifier of the first data structure and the identifier of the third data structure.