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Level 1

2 points

How to find a lost file in Microsoft Office Autorecovery

Hi - This isn't really a question, though it would have been a couple of hours ago.

After saving all his files, closing them and closing all apps, my husband rebooted his Mac Pro (Lion). When it restarted, his key Excel file wasn't there. There was no trace of it in Finder, and no trace in Time Machine. A search by Date Modified or File Name didn't show the file anywhere, either. It was like it had been sucked out of the computer and the Time Machine hard drive completely.

Cheering as that thought is, there is another answer.

Microsoft Office has an Autorecovery function that saves files when, for example, there's a power failure. These files are located on the home drive, in the Library (press Option when you click "GO" in the Finder command line at the top of the screen, otherwise Library is invisible). In Library, there is a folder called Application Support. In that folder are folders for a number of applications, one of which is Microsoft. In the Microsoft folder, there is a folder called Office. In that folder are a number of folders, one of which is Office 2011 AutoRecovery. Click that, and any files saved by the autorecovery function will appear.

Hierarchically:

Finder

Library

Application Support

Microsoft

Office

Office 2011 AutoRecovery

The key thing to realize here is that a file which gets saved in Autorecovery DOES NOT appear in any searches by date modified, name of file, etc. It's as if it is hidden completely after being saved. When you turn the computer back on after a power failure, the file pops up and does say something about recovery, but if you're not looking for it, it's easy to miss. As long as you have the file open and keep saving, there's no problem - it's just that when you close it, it seems to have disappeared completely!

I found this information on the Microsoft help pages under a slightly different heading:

http://http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2650066#Method3

So for what it's worth, that's the story, and I hope it saves someone the sheer panic of not being able to find a file in Office.

Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.3)

Posted on Sep 8, 2012 5:35 PM

202 replies

margb Author

Level 1

2 points

Jun 1, 2013 4:39 PM in response to C Holden

More like two or three smacks upside the head!! You are very welcome, I'm glad to know the posting helped. One further note - now, in addition to our Time Machine backups, our few critical files are also copied over to a USB key every night. I would really recommend an extra level of backup for things like term papers or any other file that creates a "panic attack" level response to the thought of losing it.

ZMaan

Level 1

0 points

Jun 5, 2013 10:39 PM in response to margb

Thank you so much margb! You have saved a significant portion of my life!

Jun 17, 2013 2:45 PM in response to margb

Thank you much for this information. It really helped out a customer today.

Jul 10, 2013 3:46 PM in response to margb

Thank you!!! This saved my research paper and a unit plan!! B

Aug 1, 2013 4:41 AM in response to margb

Thanks - thought I'd lost 3 hours of work! Your post meant I recovered virtually all of it. :-)

palo217

Level 1

5 points

Aug 12, 2013 5:15 PM in response to margb

Brilliant post for a dim implementation!

Thanks margb! You saved the day 🙂

Aug 18, 2013 3:36 AM in response to margb

Heaps helpfull! I guess you gave me one more day in my life! Thanks a lot!

margb Author

Level 1

2 points

Aug 29, 2013 1:39 PM in response to msugogreen

By any chance would you be a Michigan State supporter? That would really make my day!

_daniel_

Level 1

82 points

Sep 13, 2013 5:47 PM in response to margb

Hi,

I have/had the same issue.

However, it was worse in my case: despite Powerpoint being set to AutoRecovery save every 10 minutes, I lost 2 hours of work as there was only a "PowerPoint Temp" with zero byte size. So, no recovery, neither automatically nor manually 😟...

I played with the AutoRecovery save settings (disabling and re-enabling it, setting it to 3 minutes). Now, the "PowerPoint Temp" actually does have content. However, I am still not really trusting the system without a proper AutoRecovery file..

1) Is it normal that I have only "Temp" files (no suffix), and not AutoRecovery files as I do have with Word and Excel? And, if this is not normal: is there any way to enable the AutoRecovery?

2) The only apps crashing on Mac are Word and PowerPoint, preferrably on the "paste" part of copy-and-paste. Is this Microsoft's revenge on Mac users?? (OK, this is not really a question)

3) Any known work-around to make Office of Mac 2011 run more stable and prevent such crashes?

2013 MPB with 8 GB, Latest Mac OS X (10.8.4), latest PowerPoint (14.3.7), all updates installed.

User uploaded file

Sep 17, 2013 8:41 AM in response to margb

I was incredibly excited when I saw this post as I restarted my computer yesterday and when it came back on, it had deleted my saved dissertation. The file is nowhere to be found. I did all of these steps and it is still not there. When I get to the last step of clicking on Office 2011 Autorecovery, there is nothing in the folder. Does anyone have any ideas of why this might be?!

Sep 17, 2013 7:30 PM in response to margb

Hi - after losing files before, I moved the autosave to a more convenient location ... but last week after updating Office 2011 to the latest version I started having problems with "identities" every time I opened Word, Excel or PowerPoint. I think - but I'm not sure - that also impacted on my autosaves, because when Word did crash on me last week, the autosaved document was 3 hours old, despite having been set to a 5 minute back-up. At 11pm, that's not funny ...

.. but then:

1. I used the tip here: http://www.mikesel.info/show-hidden-files-mac-os-x-10-7-lion/

for showing hidden files

2. I went to Finder to look at "Files created in the last 7 days". And there it was, a Word file ending in ".asd" that was 5 minutes old

3. Opened it in Word, and re-saved with a new name (the "file format" is blank, so you need to manually select .docx or .doc etc)

Word has crashed almost daily on me with this particular document I've been working on, but each time I've recovered everything except the last few minutes.

(I've tried to see if this works on PowerPoint, but I can't get it to create the .asd file.)

PS. On the Micosoft Office identities issue, I tried following various tips for rebuilding them, which all failed. Eventually I used the "as a last resport" (final paragraph here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2360509 ) and dragged the identities folder to the Trash. Since then, I've no "identities" problems either 🙂

cauej

Level 1

0 points

Sep 19, 2013 9:11 PM in response to margb

OH MY GOD I LOVE YOU. YOU SAVED MY LIFE, THANK YOU SO MUCH

Sep 20, 2013 12:30 PM in response to margb

I thought I'd lost three days of REPEATEDLY SAVED work. Thank you for this post. I did exactly the same thing your husband did. Saved my work, restarted my computer trying to solve a different problem caused by Mountain Lion, and lost three days of work. THANK YOU!

Sep 26, 2013 5:05 PM in response to margb

Thank you so much! You just made my day!

Sep 28, 2013 8:58 AM in response to margb

You saved my life today. I spent hours working on an algebra excel lab, and thought I lost all of my changes. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you! 🙂

How to find a lost file in Microsoft Office Autorecovery