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.

SAME PROBLEM... I've been using Microsoft Office products since the '90's... don't need advice on auto-save. There is something drastically wrong with the application. Just lost my work and am not happy about it. It would be nice if Microsoft could give this some attention. This problem still exists Microsoft.. Having previously experienced the issue I had checked here before and unchecked the highlighted box as recommended by the thread here. Autosave then started working. It seems although this check box appears to be for auto recovery when checked autosave does not work so there is some incorrect link in the code behind this check box settings. And yes all updates installed. On latest updates this check box was again ticked post the upgrade meaning autosave files were not being saved. Once again I unchecked the box and autosave immediately starts working. My autosave is set to 1 minute. Microsoft..... This has been reported for years, why is this so hard to test / recreate in your test environment?

SAME PROBLEM... I've been using Microsoft Office products since the '90's... don't need advice on auto-save. There is something drastically wrong with the application. Just lost my work and am not happy about it. It would be nice if Microsoft could give this some attention.

More than a year later, and the problem persist... This issue just hit me. 5 days of work gone even though I did manually save at the end of each day before turning computer off. All new work was there each morning except this morning. Everything gone except the original save. Saved the file to a memory stick and everything except the original save is gone as well. All settings are correct per Microsoft instructions. Scan shows no corruption in the file. Computer virus scan is clean. Microsoft may have a bigger issue than the one they are ignoring.

More than a year later, and the problem persist...

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

2018-11-30T22:10:25+00:00

SAME PROBLEM... I've been using Microsoft Office products since the '90's... don't need advice on auto-save. There is something drastically wrong with the application. Just lost my work and am not happy about it. It would be nice if Microsoft could give this some attention.

This problem still exists Microsoft..

Having previously experienced the issue I had checked here before and unchecked the highlighted box as recommended by the thread here. Autosave then started working. It seems although this check box appears to be for auto recovery when checked autosave does not work so there is some incorrect link in the code behind this check box settings. And yes all updates installed. On latest updates this check box was again ticked post the upgrade meaning autosave files were not being saved. Once again I unchecked the box and autosave immediately starts working. My autosave is set to 1 minute.

Microsoft..... This has been reported for years, why is this so hard to test / recreate in your test environment?
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Anonymous

2018-11-12T22:07:07+00:00

SAME PROBLEM... I've been using Microsoft Office products since the '90's... don't need advice on auto-save. There is something drastically wrong with the application. Just lost my work and am not happy about it. It would be nice if Microsoft could give this some attention.
Was this answer helpful?

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Anonymous

2018-11-08T19:22:20+00:00

More than a year later, and the problem persist...

This issue just hit me. 5 days of work gone even though I did manually save at the end of each day before turning computer off. All new work was there each morning except this morning. Everything gone except the original save. Saved the file to a memory stick and everything except the original save is gone as well. All settings are correct per Microsoft instructions. Scan shows no corruption in the file. Computer virus scan is clean. Microsoft may have a bigger issue than the one they are ignoring.
Was this answer helpful?

0 comments No comments
Anonymous

2018-11-08T09:04:20+00:00

More than a year later, and the problem persist...
Was this answer helpful?

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