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'll add to the growing chorus here. Working on Mac (OS 10.13.3) with Excel for Mac version 16.10. Most current versions of the app and OS. Lost multiple hours of Excel work despite having manually saved several times and having AutoRecover enabled at every 10 minutes. The fact that manually saved changes were also lost is particularly disconcerting.

Same issue here, any fixes yet?

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

Aaaaargh! Add my LOUD voice to this! AutoRecovery is NOT WORKING!!!!!! MacBook Pro. High Sierra. MS 365, as always all paid up. Everything up to date (don't even... YES everything is up to date!) MS 365 up to date. Excel set to autorecovery every 10 minutes. Work for an hour. Forgot to hit "Save" every 5 mins which I do as a habit. Because Microsoft. Excel crashes. DOES NOTHING. I go hunting for the saved document, which I SHOULD be able to find (easily, but whatever). ->User->Library->Containers->com.microsoft.Excel->Data->Library->Preferences->AutoRecovery = NOTHING but an autosave from two months ago. ONE autosave. Damn it! This is really sucky. Get this FIXED! (And why can't I toggle AutoSAVE on to save to wherever I want to, not just OneDrive????)

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

2018-03-04T19:39:40+00:00

I'll add to the growing chorus here. Working on Mac (OS 10.13.3) with Excel for Mac version 16.10. Most current versions of the app and OS. Lost multiple hours of Excel work despite having manually saved several times and having AutoRecover enabled at every 10 minutes. The fact that manually saved changes were also lost is particularly disconcerting.
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Anonymous

2018-03-06T16:34:03+00:00

Same issue here, any fixes yet?
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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

2018-03-08T21:46:14+00:00

Aaaaargh! Add my LOUD voice to this! AutoRecovery is NOT WORKING!!!!!!

MacBook Pro. High Sierra. MS 365, as always all paid up. Everything up to date (don't even... YES everything is up to date!) MS 365 up to date.

Excel set to autorecovery every 10 minutes. Work for an hour. Forgot to hit "Save" every 5 mins which I do as a habit. Because Microsoft.

Excel crashes.

DOES NOTHING.

I go hunting for the saved document, which I SHOULD be able to find (easily, but whatever).

->User->Library->Containers->com.microsoft.Excel->Data->Library->Preferences->AutoRecovery = NOTHING but an autosave from two months ago. ONE autosave.

Damn it! This is really sucky. Get this FIXED!

(And why can't I toggle AutoSAVE on to save to wherever I want to, not just OneDrive????)
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