set new "autosave" toggle to off by default

Hi Jonathan,

The AutoSave is a new feature available for Office 365 subscribers wherein changes made on the file are saved in every few seconds. Regarding your concern, we cannot turn off the AutoSave feature by default in Excel 2016. However, we can turn this off to a file and Excel 2016 will keep it every time you reopen that file. To know more about the AutoSave feature and the FAQ's about it, feel free to check this link.

Let us know if you need further assistance.

Last time I checked this was the 21st century. Did the good old checkbox become obsolete all of a sudden?

You turn this off for a file and Excel 2016 will keep it every time... unless you rename the file (then it will be reset to autosave) or relocate it (then it will be reset to autosave) or make a copy of it (then it will be reset to autosave).

Why, oh why, is this necessary?

The only reason that makes ANY sense (and yet...) for not having this option to disable AutoSave by default is that Microsoft decided to build their user-behaviour analytics at the expense of the people who pay for the product. Shame on you, I already had Google for that. Shame on you, again, shame on you.

This attitude ("we know better than or moronic customers, so why giving them the choice to decide how they work") is the sort of thing that that makes once-loyal customers give a try to competitor products.

Once again, shame on you.

Completely agree.

Not giving the option to set it on or off by default is ridiculous. And worst of all, I am sure that it was thought of and discussed when this functionality was planned. So it's a deliberate choice. MS Office is NOT free software, we pay for it.

To turn it off as a default for all Office documents change the "Office" setting in OneDrive, right-click the OneDrive icon. Office Tab. Uncheck the box.

Looks like Microsoft did not implement well this feature to work with OneDrive/SharePoint sites.

This is causing a lot of headaches and Excel crashes randomly and when it does, the autorecover cannot recover...

Would be good to have this feature OFF by default for EACH document and let the users turn it on if they choose to.

The solution provided here only DISABLES the AutoSave, which is not good either.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4036334/how-to-disable-autosave-in-office-365-proplus

Users who turn-off AutoSave should also check that AutoRecover is enabled for the file - it may be disabled for that specific file.

Note that users should be aware that each AutoSave operation will also clear the UnDo list.

MS originally developed AutoSave in the 20th Century and implemented it in Office XP. It had similar issues as the new version added into Office365 and it took years for users to persuade MS to adopt the much better AutoRecover - and now we take another step backward (yes I'm aware that AutoSave improves collaborative working for the small minority who use it). 

When will Microsoft learn not to mess with the default settings that users have got familiar with.

If MS have a new 'better' facility to add to Office they should provide it as a selectable option, not as a default.