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.

Just to add to the acute frustration, I just lost the past two days work on Excel 365, with all the same 'ticks' as above except the second last 'white screen' trigger. My nemesis seems to be putting my laptop to sleep, which seems to cause a crash only when Excel is running. All data lost, with the recovery screen showing only the 'last saved' version. I don't have a problem with the 'Disable AutoRecover' check box that some seem to have. We need a social media campaign, maybe leading to a viral Twitter hashtag like '#MicrosoftXLSRip-off' or '#FixMicrosoftExcelNow' or... I'll stop before I get rude. And I am certainly no Microsoft Professional, but I bought my first IBM computer in 1982, and have used spreadsheets every day since. Long Live Lotus 1-2-3!

When is MS going to acknowledge this (and tryt o fix it). My time is also important. I have lost many big files recently then have spent a long time looking for them and then even more time researching this. Not even an acknowledgement from MS????

I suppose the only way Microsoft are going to respond to this issue is if we get enough responses here, so here goes ... Same issue here, Any fixes yet? Windows 10 with all updates installed ... tick, Excel 2016 with all updates installed ... tick, AutoRecover set at 1 minute ... tick, Disable AutoRecover unchecked ... tick, (why would you even have that option?) No AutoRecover file created ... tick, AutoRecover was working at some stage last year ... tick AutoRecover failure coincides with increased number of "Excel Not Responding" white screens ... tick, Experienced user frustrated as hell ... tick, Actually after 45 years as an IT professional, the last 5 doing Microsoft Office technical support and a 15 year veteran as a MSDN subscriber, who started using Microsoft Multiplan in 1983 I must say I am rarely surprised by anything Microsoft does, but this one and their lack of response is confusing

Excel for Mac Version 16.11 Auto-recover is not working. Lost a load of work after a crash. Could not believe I was back to the bad old days. Other Office apps seem to work. I've turned it to recover every minute - nothing in the recovery folder.

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

2018-03-14T23:43:21+00:00

Just to add to the acute frustration, I just lost the past two days work on Excel 365, with all the same 'ticks' as above except the second last 'white screen' trigger. My nemesis seems to be putting my laptop to sleep, which seems to cause a crash only when Excel is running. All data lost, with the recovery screen showing only the 'last saved' version. I don't have a problem with the 'Disable AutoRecover' check box that some seem to have.

We need a social media campaign, maybe leading to a viral Twitter hashtag like '#MicrosoftXLSRip-off' or '#FixMicrosoftExcelNow' or... I'll stop before I get rude.

And I am certainly no Microsoft Professional, but I bought my first IBM computer in 1982, and have used spreadsheets every day since. Long Live Lotus 1-2-3!
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Anonymous

2018-03-14T05:35:24+00:00

When is MS going to acknowledge this (and tryt o fix it). My time is also important. I have lost many big files recently then have spent a long time looking for them and then even more time researching this. Not even an acknowledgement from MS????
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Anonymous

2018-03-07T23:22:57+00:00

I suppose the only way Microsoft are going to respond to this issue is if we get enough responses here, so here goes ...

Same issue here, Any fixes yet?

Windows 10 with all updates installed ... tick,

Excel 2016 with all updates installed ... tick,

AutoRecover set at 1 minute ... tick,

Disable AutoRecover unchecked ... tick, (why would you even have that option?)

No AutoRecover file created ... tick,

AutoRecover was working at some stage last year ... tick

AutoRecover failure coincides with increased number of "Excel Not Responding" white screens ... tick,

Experienced user frustrated as hell ... tick,

Actually after 45 years as an IT professional, the last 5 doing Microsoft Office technical support and a 15 year veteran as a MSDN subscriber, who started using Microsoft Multiplan in 1983 I must say I am rarely surprised by anything Microsoft does, but this one and their lack of response is confusing
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Anonymous

2018-02-28T11:14:23+00:00

Excel for Mac Version 16.11

Auto-recover is not working. Lost a load of work after a crash. Could not believe I was back to the bad old days. Other Office apps seem to work.

I've turned it to recover every minute - nothing in the recovery folder.
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