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

Top-ranking reply

Sierra Mike Kilo

Level 1

8 points

Posted on Jul 21, 2017 4:30 PM

Hi Folks,

I had this issue last night and I could find your path - I was stuck after 'Go'! Could not find 'Library' anywhere.

Called the lovely Apple Support Folk and the extra little trick is to search for the folder instead via Spotlight. Although a normal search won't bring it up, therefore try:

Hit Command + Space bar,
Type: ~/Library,
Hit Return

Then follow the prompts:

Application Support

Microsoft

Office

Office 2011 AutoRecovery

Happy Searching! :-)

View in context

202 replies

Jun 7, 2014 3:45 AM in response to margb

First of all, thank you! Saved me a day's worth of report writing.

Handy tip: Don't do what I did and skip the Option > Go step.

Going into Library normally in Finder won't show the Office 2011 AutoRecovery folder inside the Office folder.

Jun 13, 2014 3:18 PM in response to margb

Margb you're a hero! This is the most useful information I've seen on the internet this year!

stelri

Level 1

0 points

Jun 30, 2014 12:51 AM in response to margb

I made an apple account just to say THANK YOU! I could just kiss you! 🙂 CAPSTONE PROPOSAL SAVED!!!

You are an angel!!

Jul 8, 2014 9:55 PM in response to margb

margb, if you ever need a favor...

just wanted to add that there is an imposter Office Recovery 2011 folder. On my computer if I go to Documents>Microsoft User Data>Office Recovery 2011 there is a folder that has no contents but when I followed the path margb wrote out my files were there, waiting for me to nurture them back to health and profusely apologize for abandoning them unsaved the way I did

Jul 10, 2014 1:42 AM in response to margb

Oh my days! Thank you for this - saved me a world of pain!🙂

mkbadri

Level 1

0 points

Aug 8, 2014 9:22 AM in response to margb

Amazing solution. This helps avoid a sure disaster! Thanks

Aug 12, 2014 11:04 AM in response to margb

Thank you. I actually bothered to log in to my Apple account just to say thank you. You saved me what would have been an immensely tedious two hours rewriting a document that was a ball ache in the first place. I would like to send you flowers.

Aug 28, 2014 12:19 AM in response to margb

Good Morning margb

I just experienced the same scenario and your instructions were wonderful, thank you. I wonder if you can help me take it a stage further please. I have located my auto recover file and my lost file is there for the whole world to see, but, it's not embolden and I can find a way to access it. Can you help me please?

Kind regards,

Irene

margb Author

Level 1

2 points

Aug 28, 2014 7:37 PM in response to irenefrombirmingham

Hi, Irene,

Boy, I wish I had a clue. You mean the file is grayed out? What happens when you "Get Info"? What permissions are attached to the file?

Marg

kateh__

Level 1

0 points

Aug 29, 2014 8:36 PM in response to margb

Hi Margb,

Thanks for sharing this advice....I am hoping you can help me further.

I still cant seem to locate the recovery file for a document that I was working on.

I was working on a file for the last two days and had the auto recovery set for every 2 mins.

The spinning wheel of death appeared and I had to Force Quit the application (This has happened before and a recovery file usually appears when I re-start Powerpoint.) This time it didn't...instead the file opened and only had the content from 3 days ago. All my recent changed where gone.

I restarted my computer and then went on a hunt for a solution.

I tried your approach going through the library and found that inside theMicrosoft folder there were just two files called MAU2.0 & MERP2.0 but found nothing else.

I looked around elsewhere and have found the file following though in Users > Microsoft Userdata > Office 2011 AutoRecovery - There are only a few very old Word docs inside ....my ppt file with recent work isn't there!! in fact there were no Powerpoint recovery files there at all

Am I looking in the wrong place? Please help if you can

Kate

...my file is no-where to be found!!

margb Author

Level 1

2 points

Aug 30, 2014 7:52 AM in response to kateh__

Hi, Kateh,

I found a link at the Microsoft support site for Office for Mac: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/892956/en-us

I can't copy the link in, it is only typed, so you may have to copy and paste.

There used to be a fantastic site for support of Office for Mac, but it's been Microsofted. If this article is not helpful, maybe back off and do a search, go to support.microsoft.com, type in "autorecovery", and check through the other articles to see if one might be useful.

Sorry I'm not able to be of more help, and good luck!

Marg

margb Author

Level 1

2 points

Aug 30, 2014 7:56 AM in response to kateh__

Oh, and please don't be mad at me for saying this - I know you've probably thought of it already - but pleeeese use a flash drive or Time Machine or an external hard drive to back up any file that is crucial. After the incident that sparked all of this for me, I made my husband back up his critical files on a flash drive every night in addition to using Time Machine.

Marg

Aug 31, 2014 6:24 AM in response to margb

A year after originally posting this and you're still saving lives. Today you saved mine. 18 graphs that took me 8 hours to do had just vanished and I massively panicked as it was a big part of my Geography GCSE Coursework. After following your instructions to recover the file I was so relieved, thank you so so much! Life saver.

Pratzee

Level 1

4 points

Oct 4, 2014 6:08 AM in response to margb

Thanks a lot margb! You saved me from losing my Humanities essay!✅🙂ℹ

AdrienC

Level 1

9 points

Oct 14, 2014 11:39 AM in response to margb

IMPORTANT - If you have upgraded to the new version of Office (Office 365), it turns out that Office now saves the temporary files in the Autorecovery folder as INVISIBLE.

In my case, I used a 3rd-pary software name "Find Any File" http://apps.tempel.org/FindAnyFile/for looking for the missing file on my hard drive

It turns out it was right there in the Autorecovery folder <username>/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Office/Office 2011 Autorecovery

but I couldn't find it as it was set to invisible.

Then, the other problem I had was that excel was unable to open the recovered file which was named something like AutoSave to 7FEE877<my_file_name>.xlsx

The error message I got was : "the file format or file extension is not valid "

I changed the .xlsx extension to .xlk (the old excel backup extension for Outlook 2011), and tried again to open it with Excel and it worked perfectly.

5 hours worth of worked saved - Thanks margb for the heads-up!

This post for SamTheBrand on SuperUser.com was also essential for finding the solution :

http://superuser.com/questions/558406/locating-autorecover-files-excel-2011-does nt-find

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How to find a lost file in Microsoft Office Autorecovery