How To Fix Autosave Not Working Issue In Excel 2019/2016?

Dealing with the Excel autosave not working issue? Or does your Excel application has stopped auto-saving your data or file?

If your answer is YES then don’t worry because you will be able to use the Excel Autosave feature very soon.

As, our today’s post is specifically about the techniques to quickly fix Excel AutoSave not working problem.

Simply follow the given fixes to get rid of Excel can’t save error : “there was a problem saving and autosave was disabled”.

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What Is Autosave Feature In Excel?

Autosave option is the life-saving feature of Microsoft that saves all the unsaved data of Excel file automatically during an unexpected Excel file crash or any other issue.

This option is very effective and able to deal with all types of data loss situations. Sometimes while reading/editing Excel document user may face a sudden power failure, Excel app crash, or a computer crashing issue, and the Excel docs are forced to close before the user can save the data.

To get rid of these data loss situations you can turn on AutoSave feature in Excel. This will save the unsaved documents automatically.

Why Is Autosave Not Working In Excel?

Following are the reasons due to which Excel Autosave not working.

  1. Autosave Feature Is Disabled – 

The very first reason behind autosave stopped working issue is that it is disabled. If this feature is disabled, then your Excel file won’t do any automatic saving of your data.

  1. Corruption In The Excel XLSX File –

 If ‘Autosave’ feature is enabled and still it’s not working then most probably the reason is ‘damaged/corrupted Excel xls/xlsx file.

How To Fix Excel Autosave Not Working Issue?

Method 1# Enable The Disabled Autosave Option In Excel

Sometimes users may forget to turn on the AutoSave option in Excel application; and thus they starts getting this autosave not working issue.

So, you have to enable this option in order to use the autosave feature for automatically saving and backing up Excel files on a Windows computer.

Follow the below-given steps to check and enable the AutoSave feature on Microsoft Excel application:

Step 1: First you have to open the Excel file using Microsoft Excel 2016 and then click on the File then go to the Options

Restore from File Recover

Step 2: Click on the Save tab present at the left pane, tick mark the Save AutoRecover information every * minutes and also tick mark Keep the last autosaved version if I close without saving box.

Enable The Disabled Autosave Option In Excel

Step 3: Then, click on the Advanced tab present at the left pane and then tick mark Allow background saves box and at last click OK to save all the changes.

Enable The Disabled Autosave Option In Excel

After this your Excel application will start AutoSaving your data and you won’t get any autosave not working issue.

Method 2# Use Other Alternative Option

If you are still unable to use the Excel AutoSave feature in order to save and backup Excel files then you have other alternative options as well i.e temp file.

If you are using the Windows 7 system then you will find the Excel Temp file at the below-given location:

C:\Users\name\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Excel\ 

If you are using the Windows 8 or 10 system then you will find the Excel Temp file at the below-given location:

C:\Users\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Office\UnsavedFiles

After finding the Excel temp file, simply resave the file with the extension .XLS/.XLSX

Method 3# Repair Corrupt Excel File

As we have already discussed that corruption is also one of the reasons behind Excel autosave not working.

If Excel file corruption has resulted this Autosave stopped working issue then you have to repair your corrupt Excel file.

For this, go with the Excel inbuilt utility tool: Open and Repair. As, it can repair damaged/corrupt Excel file and extract data.

Here are the steps to execute this inbuilt utility:

Step 1: First you have to open a blank Excel sheet, and then click on the File and Open.

Open And Repair Method

Step 2: Click on the location and path that stores the damaged Excel file.
Step 3: From the Open dialog, choose the corrupted Excel file and click on the arrow to Open button > Click Open and Repair

Open and Repair in-built Utility

Step 4: At last, you have to click on the Repair to recover as much of your work as possible.

OPEN AND REPAIR

Method 4# Resinstall The Excel Application

If you are still facing this Excel AutoSave stopped working issue then try reinstalling the Excel application. As most of the time missing components meanwhile the installtion can also generates such type of issues. So you can fix it up by reinstalling the MS Office application.

For this you have to unisntall the MS Office application from the control panel and then reinstall it again.

Also Read: How to Fix Excel AutoRecover Not Working Issue

How To Fix Excel Autosave Not Working Saved In Onedrive/SharePoint?

Sometimes you may face Excel autosave not working in the file saved in OneDrive, OneDrive for Business, or SharePoint. When a user hovers the mouse pointer over the AutoSave toggle then the tooltip will appear with the following message:

AutoSave Not Available. This file location doesn’t support AutoSave. Save to OneDrive or SharePoint Online if you want to use AutoSave.

This problem is fixed in Monthly Channel Version 1708 (Build 8431.2094) and higher. If you haven’t got any update then in order to get the latest update immediately follow the below-given steps:

First, open an Office app and navigate through the File > Account > Update Options > Update Now.

Update Excel On Mac

In case, you are still suffering from the experience or unable to update then follow the given steps:

Step 1: Open the Microsoft Office application and then click on the File > Open and navigate to the server location (OneDrive or SharePoint)

Step 2: Then, with the help of a web browser, try to open the file straight from SharePoint or OneDrive where the file is saved.

How To Autosave Microsoft Excel File To Dropbox?

Steps for the latest Excel Version

Step 1: Click on the File and then Options -> Save.

Step 2: In Outlook, click on the File > Options > Mail.

Step 3: Now, you have to confirm that the Save AutoRecover information every x minutes box is marked.

Step 4: Also confirm that Keep the last autorecovered version if I close without saving box is marked.

Steps for Microsoft Excel 2007

Step 1: Click on the Microsoft Office Button and go to the Excel Options then click Save.

Step 2: Now, you have to mark the Save AutoRecover information every x minutes check box.

Step 3: At the minute’s list, you have to specify how frequently you want the application to save your data being edited.

Step 4: Or you can also change the location where the Microsoft application automatically saves a version of files you work on.

Conclusion

That’s all about the Microsoft Excel autosave is not working, it is hoped that after applying the above-given tricks and methods your Microsoft Excel file is started saving file automatically.

If you have any other issues or queries related to the excel file then ask it on social media accounts like Facebook and Twitter.



Priyanka is a content marketing expert. She writes tech blogs and has expertise in MS Office, Excel, and other tech subjects. Her distinctive art of presenting tech information in the easy-to-understand language is very impressive. When not writing, she loves unplanned travels.