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Where has my autosave file gone?

Anonymous
2012-04-16T14:49:27+00:00

I was working on a new Excel file last week and I must have got distracted and not saved it before my laptop went to sleep later that day.  Today, I searched in Windows Explorer for a name which I know appears in one of the cells expecting to quickly find the spreadsheet - no luck.  The only files in C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Excel\ are an empty folder called XLSTART and a file called Excel12.xlb.  I tried copying that and changing its file extension to xlsx but it won't open.  What's happened to the autosave file that should have been created every 5 minutes (the spreadsheet file was open for much longer than that).  Any suggestions as to whether the sheet may be recoverable and where it might be?

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Anonymous
2013-07-18T17:15:51+00:00

Hi Gord  I'm crossing my fingers that you're still following this thread, because I'm having a problem with the Autosave Add-in.  I've got a new laptop and have installed Office 2007 on it, but each time I load a spreadsheet, I get an error message that it can't find the xla file.  For now, I don't want to install the add-in, so how can I stop the error message appearing, please?

Button>Excel Options>Add-ins

You will probably see that the Autosave add-in is listed under Active Add-ins.

Go down to Manage>Excel add-ins>Go.   Uncheck the Autosave add-in.

You will most likely get some "cannot be found, do you want to remove from list?" or similar.  Just keep going and it will be removed from the list.

Gord

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Anonymous
2012-04-16T16:51:52+00:00

Excel 2007 has no Autosave function.  Incremental Autosave has not been available in Excel since 2000 version.

2007 has AutoRecovery function which saves temporary files as you work on the workbook.

These temp files are deleted when Excel and the workbook are closed.

If Excel crashes while the workbook is open, the temp file is available but otherwise not.

If you did not save your work, it is gone.

Gord

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  1. Anonymous
    2012-04-18T05:14:09+00:00

    Hi Browniebodrum,

    Whereas Excel 2010 does have an option to load unsaved work, older Excel

    versions don't. My Autosafe does save "unsaved" work:

    www.jkp-ads.com/download.asp

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  2. Anonymous
    2012-04-17T16:39:21+00:00

    Good to hear you found the file.

    Many users including myself did not like the old version of Autosave Add-in because it overwrote the workbook each time it "autosaved" at whatever interval you chose.  You could disable it but if you forgot then you could get an undesireable save.  I personally kept it disabled.

    There have been times I was grateful for the new AutoRecovery method..........Excel has been known to crash on occasion<g>

    If you would like to use the old AutoSave in 2007 I can send you a copy of the Add-in.

    I have tested it with 2007.

    email me at  gorddibbATshawDOTca

    Gord

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  3. Anonymous
    2012-04-17T15:45:12+00:00

    Thanks for the prompt and comprehensive reply, Gord.  I had no idea - but will be (even) more diligent from now on.  As it happens, I found the file.  I had created it from a pdf using Adobe Acrobat's copy/'save as table' functions, and it had saved it in an Acrobat program folder as a csv, which is why my initial searches did not turn it up.  A lucky escape - and a cautionary tale for people like me who had always assumed that Excel still saves your work for you like the ancient versions   ;-)

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