Document Recovery ( AutoRecover ) is not working for Excel 2016. System: Windows 8.1 64 bit Microsoft Excel 2016 MSO (16.0.8528.2126) 64 bit No fix even after a full Online repair of Office 2016 and, of course, all possible Office Updates. After working for hours on several Excel documents (which had previously been saved with a file name etc.), the power went out in our building. When the power was restored and Excel reopened, I was presented with the expected list of Recovered Documents on the left side. HOWEVER, every single one of these were simply "the Original version" or "the version last saved by user" (something like that). Meaning they did not contain ANY new data that had been entered since the last time I had saved them/reopened them despite the AutoRecover being set to 1 minute. NOTES : Document Recovery seems to be working for Word and PP. The settings in Options>Save are all the same for all Office products: currently set to AutoRecover every 1 minute. The ...AppData>Roaming>Microsoft>Excel folder contains no backup file/folder for new or reopened Excel Documents. Thank goodness, the AutoRecover does seem to be updating the equivalent folder for Word ("AutoRecovery save of DocumentX.asd" files get updated) and PowerPoint (the "pptXXX.tmp" file also updated). Edit: This is obviously some MSOffice Bug. Of the multiple 'test' spreadsheets I've been playing around with to study this, exactly 1 of them seems to actually back up. But absolutely no other ones and none of my previously created sheets ever backup to AutoRecover.

I'm not sure is this will help clear up anything for anyone but initially I thought the autosave file wasn't saving to the location that I had specified as I was seeing files created in the user's profile (appdata\roaming\Microsoft\word) whenever the file had changed and the time elapsed set in autosave (default 10 minutes). My issue was never about autosave not working, it was that I didn't want files saving to the user's profile, I wanted this redirected to their network drive to cut down on the file replication during logon/logoff. Turns out the autosave file is hidden. When I turned on the option to show me hidden files I could see the file getting created in the expected location. What I actually needed to remove was the check next to **Keep the last autorecovered version if I close without saving.**This setting had the consequence (when checked) of saving a LOT of data to the user's roaming profile. For some users this accounted for 200-400 MB. I've now disabled this through group policy and I expect autosave to continue to function as normal.

Is anyone going top fix this? Just lost 30 min of work due to lack of autorecover files in Excel 2016 on MAC -- have is set to autorecover every 10 minutes. I had noted this in a 2016 post!!! VERY FRUSTRATING! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE FIX THIS!!!!!!!

Aaaaargh! Add my LOUD voice to this! AutoRecovery is NOT WORKING!!!!!! MacBook Pro. High Sierra. MS 365, as always all paid up. Everything up to date (don't even... YES everything is up to date!) MS 365 up to date. Excel set to autorecovery every 10 minutes. Work for an hour. Forgot to hit "Save" every 5 mins which I do as a habit. Because Microsoft. Excel crashes. DOES NOTHING. I go hunting for the saved document, which I SHOULD be able to find (easily, but whatever). ->User->Library->Containers->com.microsoft.Excel->Data->Library->Preferences->AutoRecovery = NOTHING but an autosave from two months ago. ONE autosave. Damn it! This is really sucky. Get this FIXED! (And why can't I toggle AutoSAVE on to save to wherever I want to, not just OneDrive????)

Same issue here, any fixes yet?

Excel 2016 AutoRecover not working - NO files being saved to the AutoRecover File location

Anonymous

Document Recovery (AutoRecover) is not working for Excel 2016.

System:

Windows 8.1 64 bit

Microsoft Excel 2016 MSO (16.0.8528.2126) 64 bit

No fix even after a full Online repair of Office 2016 and, of course, all possible Office Updates.

After working for hours on several Excel documents (which had previously been saved with a file name etc.), the power went out in our building. When the power was restored and Excel reopened, I was presented with the expected list of Recovered Documents on the left side. HOWEVER, every single one of these were simply "the Original version" or "the version last saved by user" (something like that).

Meaning they did not contain ANY new data that had been entered since the last time I had saved them/reopened them despite the AutoRecover being set to 1 minute.

NOTES:

Document Recovery seems to be working for Word and PP.
The settings in Options>Save are all the same for all Office products: currently set to AutoRecover every 1 minute.
The ...AppData>Roaming>Microsoft>Excel folder contains no backup file/folder for new or reopened Excel Documents. Thank goodness, the AutoRecover does seem to be updating the equivalent folder for Word ("AutoRecovery save of DocumentX.asd" files get updated) and PowerPoint (the "pptXXX.tmp" file also updated).

Edit: This is obviously some MSOffice Bug. Of the multiple 'test' spreadsheets I've been playing around with to study this, exactly 1 of them seems to actually back up. But absolutely no other ones and none of my previously created sheets ever backup to AutoRecover.

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.

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Anonymous

I finally found the right location of the autorecovery files for Mac users of Excel!

See: this post on this forum

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94 additional answers

Anonymous

2018-03-13T01:46:17+00:00

I'm not sure is this will help clear up anything for anyone but initially I thought the autosave file wasn't saving to the location that I had specified as I was seeing files created in the user's profile (appdata\roaming\Microsoft\word) whenever the file had changed and the time elapsed set in autosave (default 10 minutes). My issue was never about autosave not working, it was that I didn't want files saving to the user's profile, I wanted this redirected to their network drive to cut down on the file replication during logon/logoff.

Turns out the autosave file is hidden. When I turned on the option to show me hidden files I could see the file getting created in the expected location.

What I actually needed to remove was the check next to **Keep the last autorecovered version if I close without saving.**This setting had the consequence (when checked) of saving a LOT of data to the user's roaming profile. For some users this accounted for 200-400 MB. I've now disabled this through group policy and I expect autosave to continue to function as normal.
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Anonymous

2018-03-11T16:49:34+00:00

Is anyone going top fix this? Just lost 30 min of work due to lack of autorecover files in Excel 2016 on MAC -- have is set to autorecover every 10 minutes.

I had noted this in a 2016 post!!!

VERY FRUSTRATING!

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE FIX THIS!!!!!!!
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Anonymous

2018-03-08T21:46:14+00:00

Aaaaargh! Add my LOUD voice to this! AutoRecovery is NOT WORKING!!!!!!

MacBook Pro. High Sierra. MS 365, as always all paid up. Everything up to date (don't even... YES everything is up to date!) MS 365 up to date.

Excel set to autorecovery every 10 minutes. Work for an hour. Forgot to hit "Save" every 5 mins which I do as a habit. Because Microsoft.

Excel crashes.

DOES NOTHING.

I go hunting for the saved document, which I SHOULD be able to find (easily, but whatever).

->User->Library->Containers->com.microsoft.Excel->Data->Library->Preferences->AutoRecovery = NOTHING but an autosave from two months ago. ONE autosave.

Damn it! This is really sucky. Get this FIXED!

(And why can't I toggle AutoSAVE on to save to wherever I want to, not just OneDrive????)
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Anonymous

2018-03-06T16:34:03+00:00

Same issue here, any fixes yet?
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