While Excel keeps improving with each update, there are moments when it might unexpectedly crash, especially when handling big data sets. Sometimes, things go wrong outside of Excel, like a sudden power outage or your computer freezing due to something unrelated to Excel.
To prevent such situations from causing data loss, Excel offers an AutoSave feature. As the name implies, it saves your work automatically. With AutoSave turned on, Excel will save what you’re working on regularly. This way, even if something goes wrong, you won’t lose much of your work.
In this article, we discussed how to enable Autosave on Office 365 and enable and disable auto recover in older versions.
Also read: How to protect and unprotect Excel sheets?
Difference between Autosave and Autorecover
AutoSave is a recent addition to Excel Office 365, whereas AutoRecover has been around in previous versions. With AutoSave, you can save your work in real-time when you save your Excel files on OneDrive or SharePoint. The Autosave feature is only available to Office 365 users. If you don’t have Office 365, you must use the Autorecover feature.
On the other hand, Save Autorecover information is a choice that automatically saves your work every 10 minutes or according to your chosen time interval. When you turn this option on, it creates a temporary backup of your work and continues to save it within the interval you have chosen.
If your computer unexpectedly shuts down, you can still retrieve the temporarily saved file using the Autorecover feature.
How to enable autosave on Office 365?
As mentioned before, to use the Autosave feature, you must be a user of Office 365. If you have Office 365 and want to enable the Autosave feature, follow the steps below.
Step 1: Click on the File tab in the toolbar ribbon.
Step 2: Click the Save As option in the file menu.
Step 3: Now, choose OneDrive, then choose the subfolder to save the file and then save it.
Autosave will be enabled for the saved file.
Also read: Why are you receiving Dynata spam calls? How did they get your number?
How to enable auto recover or autosave on older office versions?
If you don’t use Office 365 and still want to use the autosave feature, you can enable the auto recover feature, which is enabled by default and the interval time is set to 10 minutes. To enable and edit the autorecover feature follow the steps below.
Step 1: Click on the File tab in the toolbar ribbon.
Step 2: In the file menu, click on the More and then click on the Options.
Step 3: In the sidebar, click on the Save option, checkmark the box beside Save AutoRecover information every 10 minutes and then checkmark the box beside Keep the last AutoRecovered version if I close without saving. After that, click on the OK button.
By default, the AutoRecover feature saves your workbook changes every 10 minutes. You can make this time shorter or longer according to your preference.
How to disable auto recover?
The steps to disable the auto recover feature are the same as those to enable it. If you are unsure how to disable it, follow the steps below.
Step 1: Click on the File tab in the toolbar ribbon.
Step 2: In the file menu, click on the More and then click on the Options.
Step 3: In the sidebar, click on the Save option, uncheck the box beside Save AutoRecover information every 10 minutes and tap the OK button.
Also read: How to remove page breaks in Excel?
