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.

Good tip! I will try this :) thanks!

How can you possibly lose 2 days of work? Do you not hit the save button in 2 days??? I dont think autosave is the issue here. Btw my last post i asked a simple question — did you turn in show hidden operating system files and what was the name of the file the system created. I work in the IT field and 99% of the posts here are just people whining without really providing any technical details. Call microsoft and open a case if you are really feeling strongly about this. I did and it turned out I was wrong and the behavior I was seeing. Wow, it's people like you that make people hate IT people. I too work in IT, and you are right, it is not Autosave, it is AutoRecover that is the problem. There is no hidden file created, that is exactly the problem. People "whine" because they have a problem and get no intelligent response from the arrogant techno-**** who "work in the IT field".

As this thread started last October, it seems likely to me Microsoft knew (or at least should have known!) that autorecover wasn't working. I'm pretty sure my laptop didn't crash - the autorecover files were only needed because Microsoft shut it down in order to update it. Rather inconvenient that they took away the option to opt out of automatic updates at the same time they broke autosave.

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

2018-03-23T17:14:38+00:00

Definitely worth a try!
Was this answer helpful?

0 comments No comments
Anonymous

2018-03-23T14:51:29+00:00

Good tip! I will try this :) thanks!
Was this answer helpful?

0 comments No comments
Anonymous

2018-03-21T23:34:22+00:00

How can you possibly lose 2 days of work? Do you not hit the save button in 2 days??? I dont think autosave is the issue here. Btw my last post i asked a simple question — did you turn in show hidden operating system files and what was the name of the file the system created. I work in the IT field and 99% of the posts here are just people whining without really providing any technical details. Call microsoft and open a case if you are really feeling strongly about this. I did and it turned out I was wrong and the behavior I was seeing.

Wow, it's people like you that make people hate IT people.

I too work in IT, and you are right, it is not Autosave, it is AutoRecover that is the problem. There is no hidden file created, that is exactly the problem. People "whine" because they have a problem and get no intelligent response from the arrogant techno-**** who "work in the IT field".
Was this answer helpful?

0 comments No comments
Anonymous

2018-03-21T20:54:37+00:00

As this thread started last October, it seems likely to me Microsoft knew (or at least should have known!) that autorecover wasn't working. I'm pretty sure my laptop didn't crash - the autorecover files were only needed because Microsoft shut it down in order to update it. Rather inconvenient that they took away the option to opt out of automatic updates at the same time they broke autosave.
Was this answer helpful?

0 comments No comments