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.

Have you tried unhiding all files including system files? I didnt see the files get created until i did this.

The issue this post is reporting is the AutoRecover feature, not AutoSave. AutoSave is a different issue and thread. The issue at hand here is that AutoRecover is not saving files to the designated area, no matter where you set it up! We are loosing data because when Excel crashes is does not have an AutoRecover file to recover. We know about the separate, Disabel AutoRecover for this workbook. It should be deselected. Even when that is done, Excel is not saving a file to AutoRecover when the system crashed. Microsoft, please acknowledge this issue and let us know you are working on it. We all have lost way too much of our personal and company's time. FIX THIS!

I used Word as an example, it worked exactly the same way in Excel. I applied the same policy to Powerpoint as well I went as far as opening a support case with Microsoft weeks ago.

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. Hi Sandi_293 Sounds like you are dealing with Word and as far as I know there is not a problem with Word Autorecover. There is definitely a problem with Excel in that the AutoRecover file is not being created at all and that is what this thread is about.

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.

0 comments

Answer accepted by question author

Anonymous

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

See: this post on this forum

0 comments

94 additional answers

Anonymous

2018-03-13T21:46:07+00:00

Have you tried unhiding all files including system files? I didnt see the files get created until i did this.
Was this answer helpful?

0 comments No comments
Anonymous

2018-03-13T15:15:02+00:00

The issue this post is reporting is the AutoRecover feature, not AutoSave. AutoSave is a different issue and thread.

The issue at hand here is that AutoRecover is not saving files to the designated area, no matter where you set it up! We are loosing data because when Excel crashes is does not have an AutoRecover file to recover. We know about the separate, Disabel AutoRecover for this workbook. It should be deselected.

Even when that is done, Excel is not saving a file to AutoRecover when the system crashed.

Microsoft, please acknowledge this issue and let us know you are working on it. We all have lost way too much of our personal and company's time.

FIX THIS!
Was this answer helpful?

0 comments No comments
Anonymous

2018-03-13T03:17:00+00:00

I used Word as an example, it worked exactly the same way in Excel. I applied the same policy to Powerpoint as well

I went as far as opening a support case with Microsoft weeks ago.
Was this answer helpful?

0 comments No comments
Anonymous

2018-03-13T02:59:06+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.

Hi Sandi_293

Sounds like you are dealing with Word and as far as I know there is not a problem with Word Autorecover. There is definitely a problem with Excel in that the AutoRecover file is not being created at all and that is what this thread is about.
Was this answer helpful?

0 comments No comments