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.

Hi there, Just to add that I have the same problem. Just lost a days worth of work on a manuscript when autorecover would have helped a lot. Am on a Microsoft Surface Pro with Word 2016. --Martin

This just happened to me as well. For some reason, unmerging a handful of cells triggered an Excel crash, and it turns out that there was no autorecover file (or, it was autodeleted by Excel). I've got all the settings turned on for Autosave, and consider myself an advanced Excel user (I've written enterprise applications in VBA). The same thing happened to one of my coworkers on Friday, when she tried to hide two columns- Excel crashed, and the autorecover files were either never created, or were deleted by Excel when it tried to recover the file(s)- again, recovering the original copy, with none of the changes made over multiple hours of work. At this point, I believe the Autorecover feature is nonfunctional, and hope that MS gets enough complaints that they investigate and identify the root cause I'm using Win7 x64, with Office 2016 x32 on a Dell Latitude E7450 laptop. Autorecover has worked for me in the past, so I'm inclined to blame an MS update (like the one that recently messed up merged cells in Word/Outlook, which I still have to live with until our IT department rolls out the patch MS released for that one)

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!

I'm sorry I do not know about Macs but, in case it is of any use, here is a picture of where that stupid box is in the window that opens when Windows users go to File>Options>Save... I truly hope that might help. This having no certain backup is really terrible.

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

2017-12-16T13:27:50+00:00

Hi there,

Just to add that I have the same problem. Just lost a days worth of work on a manuscript when autorecover would have helped a lot.

Am on a Microsoft Surface Pro with Word 2016.

--Martin
Was this answer helpful?

0 comments No comments
Anonymous

2017-11-13T13:54:02+00:00

This just happened to me as well. For some reason, unmerging a handful of cells triggered an Excel crash, and it turns out that there was no autorecover file (or, it was autodeleted by Excel). I've got all the settings turned on for Autosave, and consider myself an advanced Excel user (I've written enterprise applications in VBA).

The same thing happened to one of my coworkers on Friday, when she tried to hide two columns- Excel crashed, and the autorecover files were either never created, or were deleted by Excel when it tried to recover the file(s)- again, recovering the original copy, with none of the changes made over multiple hours of work.

At this point, I believe the Autorecover feature is nonfunctional, and hope that MS gets enough complaints that they investigate and identify the root cause

I'm using Win7 x64, with Office 2016 x32 on a Dell Latitude E7450 laptop. Autorecover has worked for me in the past, so I'm inclined to blame an MS update (like the one that recently messed up merged cells in Word/Outlook, which I still have to live with until our IT department rolls out the patch MS released for that one)
Was this answer helpful?

10 people found this answer helpful.

0 comments No comments
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!
Was this answer helpful?

2 people found this answer helpful.

0 comments No comments
Anonymous

2017-10-24T20:41:32+00:00

I'm sorry I do not know about Macs but, in case it is of any use, here is a picture of where that stupid box is in the window that opens when Windows users go to File>Options>Save...

I truly hope that might help. This having no certain backup is really terrible.
Was this answer helpful?

5 people found this answer helpful.

0 comments No comments