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 have the same issue. Everything is set up to autosave correctly, but my excel file is not autosaving and I lost a couple of hours work yesterday. I have 'repaired' my Office installation and checked the file for corruption issues and it still isn't autosaving. What is really annoying is the lack of response from MS in this thread about this issue!

I just had this problem yesterday, none of my docs were autosaved and none were set to 'Disable AutoRecover' - why would anyone ever do that anyway! So frustrating to find out that this is an issue MS have known about since last year and its not fixed!

I've had crashes with failed autorecovery of Excel files twice in the last week, both times losing hours of work. I spent a couple of hours on the phone with Microsoft support today, hoping they could help but it was a total waste of time. I have kept Excel updated and thought that was a good idea. With this autorecovery failure I've questioned that thought. Microsoft tells us that the autorecover files should be stored in User/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Excel/Data/Library/Preferences/AutoRecovery In my case, on two computers with up to date Excel installations (one on El Capitan 10.11.6 and the other on Yosemite 10.10.5) the autorecovery files were not being generated by Excel. I tried showing hidden files but the files simply weren't there. Now this isn't the best solution but it has worked for me. I uninstalled Office (probably only needed to uninstall Excel but I decided to do the whole of Office) and then installed the 15.41.0 version of Office (the last one before it became 16.XX). Now the autorecovery files are generated by Excel again! They are hidden files so you need to enable hidden file viewing to find them, and they do need to be changed from .xlsx to .xlsb to be opened by Excel but I now have autorecovery working again, which is much more important to me than the AutoSave feature, which didn't work for me at all! Download the older versions of Office and Excel here .

Noticed AutoRecover issues starting with whatever release the AutoSave On/Off switch was added. This seems to be for AutoSave on OneDrive only. It's always been dimmed out for me, even though I have OneDrive activated under my Microsoft account. I'm not clear how it's activated, but I don't want to use OneDrive for backup anyway. I want to do it locally. Last week after a clean Windows 10 reinstall and Office download, I have Excel 1801 (Build 9001.2171). Again, same issue as the OP and lost a night's worth of work. This is what the Save options showed: How Disabl e AutoRecover for this workbook only ever got checked on the file, or when, I have no idea. The affected file is four months old. This selection does not appear to happen on new files. If kept, it should be moved to right above or below AutoRecover file location . But it's not something I'd ever pick and has probably caused much untold misery. Uncheck it, and I do get AutoRecovery file action in the folder. Whether AutoRecovery will actually work after a premature shutdown remains to be seen.

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

2018-02-14T23:41:20+00:00

I have the same issue. Everything is set up to autosave correctly, but my excel file is not autosaving and I lost a couple of hours work yesterday. I have 'repaired' my Office installation and checked the file for corruption issues and it still isn't autosaving. What is really annoying is the lack of response from MS in this thread about this issue!
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Anonymous

2018-02-15T16:00:39+00:00

I just had this problem yesterday, none of my docs were autosaved and none were set to 'Disable AutoRecover' - why would anyone ever do that anyway!

So frustrating to find out that this is an issue MS have known about since last year and its not fixed!
Was this answer helpful?

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Anonymous

2018-02-17T02:28:11+00:00

I've had crashes with failed autorecovery of Excel files twice in the last week, both times losing hours of work. I spent a couple of hours on the phone with Microsoft support today, hoping they could help but it was a total waste of time.

I have kept Excel updated and thought that was a good idea. With this autorecovery failure I've questioned that thought.

Microsoft tells us that the autorecover files should be stored in User/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Excel/Data/Library/Preferences/AutoRecovery

In my case, on two computers with up to date Excel installations (one on El Capitan 10.11.6 and the other on Yosemite 10.10.5) the autorecovery files were not being generated by Excel. I tried showing hidden files but the files simply weren't there.

Now this isn't the best solution but it has worked for me. I uninstalled Office (probably only needed to uninstall Excel but I decided to do the whole of Office) and then installed the 15.41.0 version of Office (the last one before it became 16.XX). Now the autorecovery files are generated by Excel again! They are hidden files so you need to enable hidden file viewing to find them, and they do need to be changed from .xlsx to .xlsb to be opened by Excel but I now have autorecovery working again, which is much more important to me than the AutoSave feature, which didn't work for me at all!

Download the older versions of Office and Excel here.
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3 people found this answer helpful.

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Anonymous

2018-02-26T05:57:51+00:00

Noticed AutoRecover issues starting with whatever release the AutoSave On/Off switch was added. This seems to be for AutoSave on OneDrive only. It's always been dimmed out for me, even though I have OneDrive activated under my Microsoft account.

I'm not clear how it's activated, but I don't want to use OneDrive for backup anyway. I want to do it locally.

Last week after a clean Windows 10 reinstall and Office download, I have Excel 1801 (Build 9001.2171). Again, same issue as the OP and lost a night's worth of work. This is what the Save options showed:

How Disabl e AutoRecover for this workbook only ever got checked on the file, or when, I have no idea. The affected file is four months old. This selection does not appear to happen on new files. If kept, it should be moved to right above or below AutoRecover file location. But it's not something I'd ever pick and has probably caused much untold misery.

Uncheck it, and I do get AutoRecovery file action in the folder. Whether AutoRecovery will actually work after a premature shutdown remains to be seen.
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1 person found this answer helpful.

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