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've had crashes with failed autorecovery of Excel files twice in the last week, both times losing hours of work. I spent a couple of hours on the phone with Microsoft support today, hoping they could help but it was a total waste of time. I have kept Excel updated and thought that was a good idea. With this autorecovery failure I've questioned that thought. Microsoft tells us that the autorecover files should be stored in User/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Excel/Data/Library/Preferences/AutoRecovery In my case, on two computers with up to date Excel installations (one on El Capitan 10.11.6 and the other on Yosemite 10.10.5) the autorecovery files were not being generated by Excel. I tried showing hidden files but the files simply weren't there. Now this isn't the best solution but it has worked for me. I uninstalled Office (probably only needed to uninstall Excel but I decided to do the whole of Office) and then installed the 15.41.0 version of Office (the last one before it became 16.XX). Now the autorecovery files are generated by Excel again! They are hidden files so you need to enable hidden file viewing to find them, and they do need to be changed from .xlsx to .xlsb to be opened by Excel but I now have autorecovery working again, which is much more important to me than the AutoSave feature, which didn't work for me at all! Download the older versions of Office and Excel here .

Ugh ! Their replies I think infuriate me even more than their shotty software does! There are even more complaints on other websites. You'd think they'd attempt to fix it by now.

I'm reeeaaalllly getting tired of this ish crashing and NEVER recovering my work that matters! It always seems to save things I could care less about!!! And no, that "disable AutoRecover" box is not checked, and I have changed my AutoRecover intervals time to now every 20 minutes (as per my "IT dept" suggested), and it still doesn't save it! This is not just specific to office 2016 btw....this has been an issue for us since 2009... I have just lost the last 3+ hours of work for the umpteenth time, and that whole "be sure to manually save" bs is just that...BS! 'Cause guess what happens when I click save to often!?!?! Thats right folks!!! Everything (as in everything Microsoft office...not my whole computer screen) turns whitish and crashes!!! Aaaaaaand this is all after getting a whole new computer and updated microsoft office. And guess why I just lost the last 3 hours of work!?!?! Cause I clicked the save button!!!!! How dare I use a system the way it is intended to be used! ((~shakes fist~)) Anyway.... my point is... FIX IT MICROSOFT PEOPLE!!! (I tend to go .............. dot crazy in frustration ;P ) Sincerely, Your Fellow Frustrated Accountant Whom is Tired of Microsoft Auto Replies and Fixes and Nothing Getting Fixed or Resolved :D

Anna Bon... I'm wondering if you are still planning on following up on this issue - which is not resolved? Meanwhile, I have a further update. New workbooks I'm creating do not have that " Disable AutoRecover " box checked but they still do not save anything in AutoRecover. SOMETIMES, however, if I save the file first, then sometimes there will be backup files created in the folder. However, this is not predictable or reliable. Sure would be good to have Microsoft actually get involved here!

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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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

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94 additional answers

Anonymous

2018-02-17T02:28:11+00:00

I've had crashes with failed autorecovery of Excel files twice in the last week, both times losing hours of work. I spent a couple of hours on the phone with Microsoft support today, hoping they could help but it was a total waste of time.

I have kept Excel updated and thought that was a good idea. With this autorecovery failure I've questioned that thought.

Microsoft tells us that the autorecover files should be stored in User/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Excel/Data/Library/Preferences/AutoRecovery

In my case, on two computers with up to date Excel installations (one on El Capitan 10.11.6 and the other on Yosemite 10.10.5) the autorecovery files were not being generated by Excel. I tried showing hidden files but the files simply weren't there.

Now this isn't the best solution but it has worked for me. I uninstalled Office (probably only needed to uninstall Excel but I decided to do the whole of Office) and then installed the 15.41.0 version of Office (the last one before it became 16.XX). Now the autorecovery files are generated by Excel again! They are hidden files so you need to enable hidden file viewing to find them, and they do need to be changed from .xlsx to .xlsb to be opened by Excel but I now have autorecovery working again, which is much more important to me than the AutoSave feature, which didn't work for me at all!

Download the older versions of Office and Excel here.
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Anonymous

2018-01-03T20:46:23+00:00

Ugh ! Their replies I think infuriate me even more than their shotty software does! There are even more complaints on other websites. You'd think they'd attempt to fix it by now.
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Anonymous

2017-12-27T03:45:43+00:00

I'm reeeaaalllly getting tired of this ish crashing and NEVER recovering my work that matters! It always seems to save things I could care less about!!! And no, that "disable AutoRecover" box is not checked, and I have changed my AutoRecover intervals time to now every 20 minutes (as per my "IT dept" suggested), and it still doesn't save it!

This is not just specific to office 2016 btw....this has been an issue for us since 2009...

I have just lost the last 3+ hours of work for the umpteenth time, and that whole "be sure to manually save" bs is just that...BS! 'Cause guess what happens when I click save to often!?!?! Thats right folks!!! Everything (as in everything Microsoft office...not my whole computer screen) turns whitish and crashes!!! Aaaaaaand this is all after getting a whole new computer and updated microsoft office. And guess why I just lost the last 3 hours of work!?!?! Cause I clicked the save button!!!!! How dare I use a system the way it is intended to be used! ((~shakes fist~))

Anyway.... my point is... FIX IT MICROSOFT PEOPLE!!!

(I tend to go .............. dot crazy in frustration ;P )

Sincerely,

Your Fellow Frustrated Accountant Whom is Tired of Microsoft Auto Replies and Fixes and Nothing Getting Fixed or Resolved :D
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Anonymous

2017-11-02T16:37:14+00:00

Anna Bon...

I'm wondering if you are still planning on following up on this issue - which is not resolved?

Meanwhile, I have a further update.

New workbooks I'm creating do not have that "Disable AutoRecover" box checked but they still do not save anything in AutoRecover. SOMETIMES, however, if I save the file first, then sometimes there will be backup files created in the folder.

However, this is not predictable or reliable.

Sure would be good to have Microsoft actually get involved here!
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2 people found this answer helpful.

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