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.

Sorry but what you stated there either simply does not work or is a flat lie. On multiple occasions (much to the anger and dissapointment of myself and coworkers who have lost many hours of work to this) the auto recover function does NOT help in the event of a crash. What is worse is that the manual save feature also does not work unless the program IS CLOSED NORMALLY. If the file has been manually saved but the program is not allowed to close normally, (ie. Program Crash, Computer Crash, Computer Shutdown) then any data that has been created since the last time the program was saved AND SHUT DOWN IS LOST. EVEN IF YOU MANUALLY SAVED.

I have been having the same issue. The fact that even the manual save button does nothing is a cause of serious concern. I myself lost all the work I had done this morning to the very same thing.

Ugh ! Their replies I think infuriate me even more than their shotty software does! There are even more complaints on other websites. You'd think they'd attempt to fix it by now.

Those with the issue of the Disable AutoRecover checkbox being ticked SHOULD ALSO BE AWARE that even if the box is clicked off and saved, a file may revert back to being checked again at another time. Files where I have found the box to be checked have had the option turned off only for me to find it checked again after reopening and then not AutoRecovered. This has caused so much trouble for me. My Excel crashes daily, either because of a large file I must use or an add-in. I won't know for another week or so. But because of the crashes, the Disable AutoRecover issue is very apparent. It's probably FAR more widespread but if not experiencing frequent crashes (like all of us here) you would never even know about thIs glitch - because you wouldn't need an AutoRecovered file.

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

2018-01-03T18:09:41+00:00

Sorry but what you stated there either simply does not work or is a flat lie. On multiple occasions (much to the anger and dissapointment of myself and coworkers who have lost many hours of work to this) the auto recover function does NOT help in the event of a crash. What is worse is that the manual save feature also does not work unless the program IS CLOSED NORMALLY. If the file has been manually saved but the program is not allowed to close normally, (ie. Program Crash, Computer Crash, Computer Shutdown) then any data that has been created since the last time the program was saved AND SHUT DOWN IS LOST. EVEN IF YOU MANUALLY SAVED.
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Anonymous

2018-01-03T18:11:11+00:00

I have been having the same issue. The fact that even the manual save button does nothing is a cause of serious concern. I myself lost all the work I had done this morning to the very same thing.
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1 person found this answer helpful.

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Anonymous

2018-01-03T20:46:23+00:00

Ugh ! Their replies I think infuriate me even more than their shotty software does! There are even more complaints on other websites. You'd think they'd attempt to fix it by now.
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3 people found this answer helpful.

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Anonymous

2018-01-10T18:35:17+00:00

Those with the issue of the Disable AutoRecover checkbox being ticked SHOULD ALSO BE AWARE that even if the box is clicked off and saved, a file may revert back to being checked again at another time.

Files where I have found the box to be checked have had the option turned off only for me to find it checked again after reopening and then not AutoRecovered. This has caused so much trouble for me.

My Excel crashes daily, either because of a large file I must use or an add-in. I won't know for another week or so. But because of the crashes, the Disable AutoRecover issue is very apparent.

It's probably FAR more widespread but if not experiencing frequent crashes (like all of us here) you would never even know about thIs glitch - because you wouldn't need an AutoRecovered file.
Was this answer helpful?

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