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.

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. As the Original Poster, I feel a bit of ownership of this thread and can no longer bite my tongue after reading posts like yours. First off, Sandi_293, are you Allen Jones' mother? Please tell me how you have any kind of authority to judge anyone's actions? Given that they're not illegal or immoral or even costing you anything personally, your judgment is quite ridiculous. It is interesting to note that, just because you might hit 'save' every time you blink, such behaviour doesn't automatically open up a new seat up there on the high horse. So how about you give up the judgment? It doesn't help anyone and just exposes your character to the WWW. Second, it's awesome that your IT credentials have enabled you to diagnose this problem. We certainly could use some official help since Microsoft clearly doesn't care one iota. Since you " dont [sic] think autosave is the issue here ", do you feel like sharing how showing "hidden operating system files" would cause missing AutoRecover files to be miraculously presented after a crash? (Also, we’re not talking about AutoSave here.) The only reason anyone is even searching for the existence of these files (and finding them to be missing) is because, after a crash, Excel is failing to present the expected AutoRecover files upon restart. Showing them (or not showing them) in the backup folder makes no difference in the actual failing behaviour of the AutoRecover function. But, just so you can unbunch your panties, I have, indeed, shown hidden system files. I have also described the hit and miss (mostly miss) behaviour of Excel in creating these AutoRecover backup files in the original post. Feel free to re-read it. Also, I not only manually click “Save” every few minutes now but, because people are confirming that that, alone, still doesn’t actually reliably save the file, I also regularly close and reopen the file afresh. I hope that my behaviour meets your standards. And if you are blessed enough to not have a problem with Excel's failure to AutoRecover crashed documents, one final question: Why are you following this thread?

I am piling on here, but I just lost 5 hours of work. Why did Windows 10 crash/restart for no reason as I am working on the computer? No idea. Why was there no AutoSaved version of my spreadsheet in the recovered / autosaved files folder? No idea. This feature is ESSENTIAL and it does not work. MSFT, you suck. Please put someone on this who can figure it out and fix it. You have known about it for months now.

It is definitely widespread! I believe for the most part, the majority of us are aware of this glitch, and have made sure to check that the box is not checked every time we open the damn thing. My issue is that all the settings seem to be correct, but it still won't auto save. I say seem because excel settings become more more complicated with each passing year. Once you've mastered the lingo they change it again... The class I took in 2010 was obsolete the moment I completed it lol Another issue I can't seem to figure out is why that box is checked in one of my workbooks, and it won't let me uncheck it. Anybody know how to fix this? Unfortunately this is not the only workbook I have the autosave issue with. Whether that box is checked or not, it doesn't autosave.

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.

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

2018-03-20T14:08:26+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.

As the Original Poster, I feel a bit of ownership of this thread and can no longer bite my tongue after reading posts like yours.

First off, Sandi_293, are you Allen Jones' mother? Please tell me how you have any kind of authority to judge anyone's actions? Given that they're not illegal or immoral or even costing you anything personally, your judgment is quite ridiculous. It is interesting to note that, just because youmight hit 'save' every time you blink, such behaviour doesn't automatically open up a new seat up there on the high horse. So how about you give up the judgment? It doesn't help anyone and just exposes your character to the WWW.

Second, it's awesome that your IT credentials have enabled you to diagnose this problem. We certainly could use some official help since Microsoft clearly doesn't care one iota. Since you "dont [sic] think autosave is the issue here", do you feel like sharing how showing "hidden operating system files" would cause missing AutoRecover files to be miraculously presented after a crash? (Also, we’re not talking about AutoSave here.) The only reason anyone is even searching for the existence of these files (and finding them to be missing) is because, after a crash, Excel is failing to present the expected AutoRecover files upon restart. Showing them (or not showing them) in the backup folder makes no difference in the actual failing behaviour of the AutoRecover function.

But, just so you can unbunch your panties, I have, indeed, shown hidden system files. I have also described the hit and miss (mostly miss) behaviour of Excel in creating these AutoRecover backup files in the original post. Feel free to re-read it. Also, I not only manually click “Save” every few minutes now but, because people are confirming that that, alone, still doesn’t actually reliably save the file, I also regularly close and reopen the file afresh. I hope that my behaviour meets your standards.

And if you are blessed enough to not have a problem with Excel's failure to AutoRecover crashed documents, one final question: Why are you following this thread?
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Anonymous

2018-01-29T02:31:25+00:00

I am piling on here, but I just lost 5 hours of work. Why did Windows 10 crash/restart for no reason as I am working on the computer? No idea. Why was there no AutoSaved version of my spreadsheet in the recovered / autosaved files folder? No idea. This feature is ESSENTIAL and it does not work. MSFT, you suck. Please put someone on this who can figure it out and fix it. You have known about it for months now.
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Anonymous

2018-01-10T19:45:38+00:00

It is definitely widespread! I believe for the most part, the majority of us are aware of this glitch, and have made sure to check that the box is not checked every time we open the damn thing. My issue is that all the settings seem to be correct, but it still won't auto save. I say seem because excel settings become more more complicated with each passing year. Once you've mastered the lingo they change it again... The class I took in 2010 was obsolete the moment I completed it lol

Another issue I can't seem to figure out is why that box is checked in one of my workbooks, and it won't let me uncheck it. Anybody know how to fix this?

Unfortunately this is not the only workbook I have the autosave issue with. Whether that box is checked or not, it doesn't autosave.
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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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