lulugingembre

Q: Unable to locate Office 2011 Autorecovery folder in Application support folder

Dear all,

I am in desperate need for your help. I closed an excel file I worked on for hours and am unable to locate it. I know it is in the Office 2011 Autorecovery Folder, since I can see it in shaded when I try to "save as" another excel file which was also recovered and is in this folder.

 

I've searched answers on this forum and see that you can supposedly find auto-recovered documents using this path

Click Finder > Go > Hold down the Option key and choose Library > Application Support > Microsoft > Office > Office 2011 AutoRecovery.

 

However, in my situation, I get stuck in the last step: I am not able to see Office 2011 AutoRecovery in the Office folder. Can somebody save me?

 

Thanks so much,

 

Lucile

iMac, OS X Mavericks (10.9.5)

Posted on Oct 3, 2014 6:28 AM

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Q: Unable to locate Office 2011 Autorecovery folder in Application support folder

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  • by mareynoldsaustin,

    mareynoldsaustin mareynoldsaustin Dec 13, 2014 7:41 PM in response to lulugingembre
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 13, 2014 7:41 PM in response to lulugingembre

    Open Finder. In the left panel, under Favorites, click the house icon next to your computer's name. Then click Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Office/Office 2011 Autorecovery. (Drag that folder to your Favorites list so you'll always be able to find it.) Open the missing file.

  • by Joyus1,

    Joyus1 Joyus1 Jan 21, 2015 10:12 PM in response to mareynoldsaustin
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 21, 2015 10:12 PM in response to mareynoldsaustin

    I can get to my buried folder (I turned hidden folders on on my Mac a while back), but there is no "Office 2011 Autorecovery" folder under "Office". The only folder in that path is "User Templates." I checked Word's options and Autorecovery was already checked, so it should have been saving copies for me. I have plenty of files on my machine that I've worked with on off and on. There definitely should be some autosaved files somewhere. The one I am currently missing, I'm heartsick about the loss of time and having to redo. I usually do a pretty good job of Ctrl+S on a regular basis, but in this case, I hadn't thought to do that and Word crashed on me more than an hour into editing this file. Argh!

     

    Maybe it's time to find a new word processor. Word 2011 leaves much to be desired.

     

    I have Yosemite, btw, in case the lack of autorecovery files is specific to my OS version.

  • by MLnash,Helpful

    MLnash MLnash Jan 31, 2015 6:26 PM in response to Joyus1
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Jan 31, 2015 6:26 PM in response to Joyus1

    I am a novice but I had a version of this problem and found the information at this link incredibly helpful in dealing with how office 2011 AutoRecovery is hidden in the current version of OSX. Hope this helps you.

     

    http://macmanus.nl/2014/09/15/fixed-where-are-my-office-2011-autorecovery-files/

     

    Nowadays, the AutoRecovery-folder is located in an entirely different location on your Mac. The correct path is this :

    ~/Users/username/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Office/Office 2011 AutoRecovery

    But there is yet another tiny hurdle to get to it : in the current version of OSX, the user’s Library-folder is a hidden folder. So if you want to access it, the easiest way to do so is :

    – in the Finder, click on “Go” in the top menu bar

    – when the pulldown menu appears, press the ALT-key on your keyboard (a.k.a. OPTION-key) and an extra option named “Library” will appear in the pulldown menu

    – while holding the ALT-key, click on “Library” and your personal (hidden) Library-folder will open in the Finder

    – there you can navigate to Application Support–>Microsoft–>Office to find the “Office 2011 AutoRecovery”-folder you are looking for

  • by sskyy,

    sskyy sskyy Feb 25, 2015 5:13 PM in response to MLnash
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 25, 2015 5:13 PM in response to MLnash

    The above suggestion works!  The previous suggestions that direct you to go to the Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Office/Office 2011 Autorecovery does not work.  The autorecovery folder does not "exist" here.  MLnash's suggestion works, and it will direct you to the autorecovery folder we are all searching for!  Thank you very much, MLnash!

  • by yaritanew,

    yaritanew yaritanew Mar 4, 2015 8:43 PM in response to MLnash
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 4, 2015 8:43 PM in response to MLnash

    thank you so much, after hours of looking for a solution, you solved my problem!!!

  • by jjchen91,

    jjchen91 jjchen91 Mar 10, 2015 5:00 PM in response to MLnash
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 10, 2015 5:00 PM in response to MLnash

    Thank you thank you thank you!!! You just saved me a huge project that got spirited away by the technology gods.

  • by raidah ,

    raidah raidah Mar 31, 2015 2:14 PM in response to MLnash
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 31, 2015 2:14 PM in response to MLnash

    Lifesaver! Thankyou so much the Alt button is the way to go! Older forums show the "Office 2011 AutoRecovery Folder" which does not work now Thankyou!!

  • by Indi HJ,

    Indi HJ Indi HJ Apr 1, 2015 4:35 AM in response to MLnash
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 1, 2015 4:35 AM in response to MLnash

    You, good Mac user, just saved my bacon. Thanks so much!!

  • by jennis1987,

    jennis1987 jennis1987 Apr 17, 2015 6:37 AM in response to MLnash
    Level 1 (0 points)
    iTunes
    Apr 17, 2015 6:37 AM in response to MLnash

    Thank you so much for this advice. I thought I'd lost a whole morning of work until I followed your instructions. Phew!!

     

    Cheers,

    Jenni S.

  • by sar4tennis,

    sar4tennis sar4tennis Apr 22, 2015 10:27 AM in response to MLnash
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 22, 2015 10:27 AM in response to MLnash

    This was a life saver!  Thank you so much

  • by kiwicliff,

    kiwicliff kiwicliff Jun 2, 2015 1:53 AM in response to lulugingembre
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jun 2, 2015 1:53 AM in response to lulugingembre

    Many thanks to you and to the original problem solver.

    The solution offered worked fine.  But WHY OH WHY DOES APPLE DO THESE THINGS  AND CREATE THESE PROBLEMS?

    The problem occurred because my computer crashed and when it restarted the default save option in Excel was this auto recovery folder.

    So the moral is to check that it hasn't decided to chenge the save folder for you, or you will be tearing your hair out.

  • by auntypeg,

    auntypeg auntypeg Jun 7, 2015 3:01 AM in response to MLnash
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Jun 7, 2015 3:01 AM in response to MLnash

    THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!  My computer crashed, and I couldn't find my files.  I restarted/recreated from an old saved version, and then those files disappeared too.  Finally I noticed that I was saving to the "auto recovery" file and so my files weren't even saving into documents like they always have.  I looked through TONS of threads on how to find the files in the auto recovery mode, and this is the ONLY one that worked at all!!!!  THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!

  • by Kirstenineight,

    Kirstenineight Kirstenineight Jun 12, 2015 9:13 AM in response to lulugingembre
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jun 12, 2015 9:13 AM in response to lulugingembre

    I have been on soooo many threads trying to recover my excel file, and this was the one!!  THANK YOU SO MUCH!!

    I also found that typing: 

    chflags nohidden ~/Library

    into terminal also unhides the library for the username (I was having trouble doing it in finder)

    Here's the link:

    http://www.wikihow.com/Unhide-the-User-Library-Folder-on-a-Mac

     

    YAY for recovered documents!! Thanks again!

  • by jfmatias,

    jfmatias jfmatias Aug 22, 2015 6:49 AM in response to Kirstenineight
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 22, 2015 6:49 AM in response to Kirstenineight

    this was way helpful, saved me another three hours of work.  thank you again!!!!

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