Autosave not working - no files are there

Anonymous
2014-01-12T05:27:19+00:00

I use autosave and have it set for every time minutes. I had a workbook open and was inputting data for many hours. I saw the taskbar show it autosave many, many times until it crashed. When I reopened excel, it reverted back to the last user saved version which was several hours old. I searched for the autorecover files, but they are the same old file. When I tried opening one, I get the error that happeend when it crashed - it says 'Excel cannot complete the task with available resources. Choose less data or close other application" (this was the error when it crashed in the first place)

I have plenty or memory available on my computer

I really need this fixed. Autosave does me no good if I can't recover my files.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Excel | For home | Windows

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  1. Anonymous
    2016-09-22T22:59:42+00:00

    I happen to have this exact problem as well. I am using Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 and of recent I am constantly- always as a matter- of fact plagued with this problem. This also is always followed by me not being able to save any spreadsheets at all. Whenever I attempt to save the program goes non responsive and everything is lost. I really need some help on this issue urgently as I rely on spreadsheets alot.

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-09-20T15:06:12+00:00

    This has happened to me twice now. I have a habit of manually saving via the save icon at the top left of the screen (as well as CTRL + S). Autosave was also set to save every 10min. Despite both methods of saving, about 3-5hrs of work was lost.

    After ensuring my files were saving to the correct location, I opened a new workbook for a different project (several days later) and tried again, figuring my computer was just being dumb. Excel crashed again, saving only the original version of my workbook. Luckily only 2hrs of work was lost, but at this point I'm starting to feel like no method of saving will prevent hours of wasted time. The microsoft excel recovery folder did not save my workbook (I triple checked, looking for the correct folder a myriad of ways).

    Now, I have changed the default location to the OneDrive and synced that with my user documents folder, in addition to changing the autosave time to every 1 minute (not that that will do anything). I'm going to uninstall and reinstall 365 and see what happens.

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-09-18T21:02:45+00:00

    I just had the same problem using Word.  Autorecover on, 10 minutes, and after Win10 crashed, lost 2 hours of work. No *.asd files in the expected places, etc. etc.

    This is really a serious issue here. Just saying that, "Autorecovery is not autobackup," is not a good enough answer, Microsoft. If people can write macros to implement true autosave, when can't microsoft make this an option?

    Totally disappointing.

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-08-25T12:31:13+00:00

    Any suggestions Microsoft ?  I've the same issue, not worked on an excel file for half an hour, Windows 10 crashes (again.... on both my computers windows 10 is less stable than earlier versions of windows ).  when I restart the computer and Excel the document recovery pane only has the the file I saved an hour before.  Autosave is set to every 10 minutes - but where is it? I've looked in the autosave file location too and there is nothing there.

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  5. Anonymous
    2016-07-17T16:50:15+00:00

    I am so flipping angry right now.

    I've been working on a spreadsheet for 2 weeks.  About a week ago, my PC crashed and when I got back into excel the last save on the document was several days old.  The file was being stored and worked on through my OneDrive account (since Windows 10 seems to think that's my default document store).

    I have a habit of periodically using the "file > save" option while working so there should have been a save that was less than an hour old.  

    I searched the folder where autosave documents are supposed to be stored and the only file was the one from several days earlier.

    I lost 3 days of work.

    I started again after that incident and have been fastidiously saving the document manually all week.  Instead of saving on OneDrive I intentionally changed the storage path to the local PC in the normal My Documents folder in my user profile.

    Before going to bed last night I saved the file and closed Excel.  I've been working this file every evening and have had no issues opening and closing it.

    This morning when I went to open the file I can find no trace of any edits since July 3rd... the date of my original issues.

    All the work I've done for nearly 2 weeks is gone and I can't find any evidence that I've actually worked on a file.

    Thank god this is just a pet project I've been doing and not a work-related task... I'd be up the creek without a paddle. 

    My computer did not shutdown / reboot or do a restore function between the time I went to bed and the time I woke up.

    Other apps that were left open were still running and I see no evidence in the event viewer that anything like that occurred. 

    I ran Office 2013 Pro for several years without issue and now that I'm using Office 2016 Pro I'm having problems.  I'm glad I spent the money for this POS product.

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