Excel periodically saves a copy of the file. From the article you will learn how to recover an unsaved file, and a document saved at least once. When first opened after a crash, Excel displays a bar Document Recovery (Document recovery). This is a quick way to revive the last autosaved file.
A file that has never been saved
If you’ve never saved a file and accidentally pressed the button Don’t save (Don’t Save) when closing Excel (or if the program crashes), follow the instructions below to save the last autosaved document.
Note: In the image above, Excel is telling you that the latest copy will remain available.
- On the Advanced tab Fillet (File) click Info (Information).
- Press Manage Versions (Version Control), click on Recover Unsaved Workbooks (Recover unsaved books).
- Select the last automatically saved document.
Document saved at least once
If you have saved a file at least once but accidentally clicked Don’t save (Don’t Save) when closing Excel (or if the program crashes), follow the instructions below to restore the last autosaved document.
Note: Excel tells you that the latest copy will remain available.
- Open a document.
- On the Advanced tab Fillet (File) select Info (Information).
- Click on Manage Versions (Version Control) and click on the last autosaved document.
Versions
When you work with an Excel file, the program saves all previous autosave documents by version.
- You can revert to a previous version of an Excel file at any time.
Note: Excel deletes all previous autosaves when it closes.
Setting
To change autosave settings, do the following:
- On the Advanced tab Fillet (File) select Options (Settings) > Save (Preservation).
Note: You can set autosave every n minutes, change the folder where autosaved documents are located, etc.