Autosave for Excel for Mac Missing

Question

I was working extensively on an excel file, 2016 version, on my Mac, saved to dropbox. Excel crashed, and when I loaded it, I did not get the option to open my autosaved file (set to autosave every 10 minutes). Do you know how I can get it? I only see one 165 byte file with a ~$ in front of the name that doesn't open.

Answer 1

Hi

I think you are confusing two different features having nearly identical names.

AutoSAVE kicks in automatically when you save your workbook to OneDrive or SharePoint. There is no setting for the save interval with AutoSave. To review the version history when using AutoSave, open your file in Excel and click the little chevron at the right end of the file name in the title bar and choose Browse Version History. If you saved your file to any location other than OneDrive or SharePoint, AutoSave is automatically turned Off.

AutoRECOVER kicks in automatically when you save your workbook to your Mac OS Desktop or Documents folder. AutoRECOVER has a setting in Excel preferences where you can control the save interval of the AutoRecover workbook. An AutoRecover workbook exists only if Excel quite unexpectedly before it was saved or closed. When the workbook is saved or closed, the AutoRecover file is automatically erased. This topic from Excel Help explains where to find the AutoRecover file:

Recover files in Office for Mac AutoRecover, a feature that is available in some Office applications, attempts to recover files automatically in the event of an application or system crash.

Saving to or opening directly from DropBox is not supported in Microsoft Office applications. DropBox has its own file recovery system. Saving directly to or opening directly from DropBox often works fine, but you take a substantial risk of file corruption when you do it. Open and save locally and then use Finder or a web browser to replace the contents on DropBox.

Deleted file recovery and file history - Dropbox