This browser is no longer supported.
Upgrade to Microsoft Edge to take advantage of the latest features, security updates, and technical support.
![](data:image/svg+xml, %3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' height='64' class='font-weight-bold' style='font: 600 30.11764705882353px "SegoeUI", Arial' width='64'%3E%3Ccircle fill='hsl(128, 8%, 22%)' cx='32' cy='32' r='32' /%3E%3Ctext x='50%25' y='55%25' dominant-baseline='middle' text-anchor='middle' fill='%23FFF' %3EA%3C/text%3E%3C/svg%3E)
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.
A family of Microsoft spreadsheet software with tools for analyzing, charting, and communicating data.
Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
Oh thanks! Now here's another question - how do I get rid of it? It only shows up in Excel and I don't use either OneDrive or Sharepoint.
Also, it still doesn't solve my autosave issues either.
I think what's really troubling to me is how many people are having this issue, yet nothing has been addressed about it.
My current job is the first time I've had to use Excel exclusively and I hate it (I've never liked it to begin with, but you would think using it would change my mind. Nope). Just last week, I spent several hours working on something when Excel itself crashed upon saving. It took forever before it would recover to the point where I had to close and then open it.
Despite ALWAYS having auto save on for every 10 minutes (as I have it with all my other Office programs), I have NO files on either one of my computers, from which I worked on the file last. As the OP mentioned, autosave does nothing if files can't be recovered when something happens. And with this occurring, I'm not convinced that Word is even updating; thankfully I keep most of personal items in Google Drive, which DOES update every time a file is changed and I save it manually.
That's what I don't understand. Last week, I noticed I now have this 'AutoSave' icon next to the actual Save icon and it's turned to off. This has just appeared and what's annoying is, I don't know how to turn it on. Every place I've looked says to turn it on in options, however - as mentioned above - it's BEEN turned on in options, ever since I installed it on my computer. How is it that in options it can be turned on, but show being turned on??
I've included a screen shot - again, this item did not turn on until last week and has never been there before. Is this something new? And again, HOW DO I TURN IT ON??
I've just encountered this problem as well.
Excel locked up and after an hour I gave up on it and force quit the program, thinking I could just get the autosave version and at most I'd only lose 10mins work (my autosave is set to 10 mins).
Open up excel again and what do you know, not autosave versions.
Interestingly though, it has autosaved other excel files I had open at the time, but it has no record of the one I was working in.
Is it likely to be a bug in the file itself then?
Can someone resolve this urgently!!!! Worked on a file for an hour, then crashed and no recovery of unsaved documents available.
I have been having the same general issue. I thought it was working on files that are stored primarily on a USB drive.
Ran a test - still working with original on USB drive. Created a new autosave folder (on a networked drive). Pointed autosave to that folder and asked MS Word to save a copy every 2 min. 20min later, nothing in that folder.