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.

'autosave' and 'autorecover' are different features right?

I believe so: AutoSave as in the top-left corner of the Word and Excel is for saving on OneDrive. AutoRecover would be saving to your own hard drive, then getting recovered files in case of a crash. It's gotten confusing.

I just had a crash that cost me two days worth of work. I had three spreadsheets open - one .xls file and two .xlsx files. The .xls file autorecovered. The changes on the two .xlsx files were lost. All of the right boxes were checked on everything. When is Microsoft going to finally get around to fixing this?

Right, and that's BS. Cloud backup should be an option, not a requirement. The implementation has fouled up local backup somehow. This thing's getting daily responses and not a word from MS even in acknowledgement. This is core functionality by any measure. Do we need New York Times to look into this? I like this idea. It really does seem to be beyond the pale, even for a Microsoft product. Several people would need to write.

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

2018-03-18T11:27:44+00:00

'autosave' and 'autorecover' are different features right?
Was this answer helpful?

0 comments No comments
Anonymous

2018-03-18T22:26:18+00:00

I believe so: AutoSave as in the top-left corner of the Word and Excel is for saving on OneDrive. AutoRecover would be saving to your own hard drive, then getting recovered files in case of a crash. It's gotten confusing.
Was this answer helpful?

0 comments No comments
Anonymous

2018-03-19T07:07:58+00:00

I just had a crash that cost me two days worth of work. I had three spreadsheets open - one .xls file and two .xlsx files. The .xls file autorecovered. The changes on the two .xlsx files were lost. All of the right boxes were checked on everything. When is Microsoft going to finally get around to fixing this?
Was this answer helpful?

0 comments No comments
Anonymous

2018-03-20T05:55:34+00:00

Right, and that's BS. Cloud backup should be an option, not a requirement. The implementation has fouled up local backup somehow.

This thing's getting daily responses and not a word from MS even in acknowledgement. This is core functionality by any measure. Do we need New York Times to look into this?

I like this idea. It really does seem to be beyond the pale, even for a Microsoft product. Several people would need to write.
Was this answer helpful?

0 comments No comments