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! :-)

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202 replies

Apr 13, 2015 6:08 PM in response to margb

Still brilliant. saved me 10 hours of reconstruction. On my keyboard, you have to hold "alt" which has the Mac command symbol, in order to make Library visible.

A$B

Level 1

4 points

May 6, 2015 5:33 AM in response to margb

Thanking you!!!!!1

May 28, 2015 9:19 AM in response to margb

Once again ppt mac has lost $1000 worth of work. I saved it, autorecovery set for every 1 minute. Nothing ever in autorecovery file worth anything. So frustrating. My ppt 2011 does crash every day on my 15" retina macbook. Is there a solution. What is the point of autorecovery, but an illusion to make me think I am safe. I have this happen when I lose a bunch of work every year about. It happened on my old macbook, happens on this one. Is it because microsoft wants us to buy their OS?

Csound1

Level 9

60,063 points

May 28, 2015 9:40 AM in response to seantruce1

You did a thousand dollars of work without bothering to save it?

May 28, 2015 11:59 PM in response to Csound1

Why can't someone have a program where autosave automatically saves things, so you don't have to waste your time remembering to push save all of the time. Computers should do things automatically. I am pretty sure I did push save a bunch of times. Is there another program I can buy that will really autosave? They can call it therealautosave instead of autosave that repeatedly does not save and loses work, not just for me, but probably millions of dollars of work around the world per day.

Jun 7, 2015 12:21 PM in response to margb

Thanks, you indeed saved the loss of many hours writing this medico-legal document. 🙂🙂

Jun 10, 2015 2:13 PM in response to Csound1

Saved over a Microsoft Excel File with a new version of the file. NEED the old version back. I've already shut down Excel and then freaked at my mistake. I'm sure you've answered this a billion times already. Thoughts (other than disgust at my stupidity....)?

margb Author

Level 1

2 points

Jun 10, 2015 2:21 PM in response to momo1515rc

HEre is a link to a Microsoft article on this point:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_2010-word/how-to-recover- previous-versions-of-a-document/ee47c8ed-3d4a-e011-8dfc-68b599b31bf5

a $20 flash drive to quickly back up crucial files is a great investment in low blood pressure. Or use Time Machine for broader and deeper coverage.

GOod luck!

marg

Jun 10, 2015 2:59 PM in response to margb

Applied only to PC users. I'm on a Mac with Microsoft Office 2011. Sorry, should have mentioned that before. Merp.

margb Author

Level 1

2 points

Jun 11, 2015 4:58 AM in response to momo1515rc

Hi,

Sorry I didn't look at the link more closely to see it was PC oriented. The link below is for OS X but the bottom line reads "If you overwrite your only copy of a file you can not recover the overwritten copy."

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/mac/forum/macoffice2011-macexcel/how-to-resto re-overwritten-excel-file/46e038d1-ae48-…

Jun 12, 2015 4:31 PM in response to margb

TThanks - saved me a whole world of nightmares!

dana2342

Level 1

0 points

Jun 14, 2015 9:16 PM in response to margb

I created a user account just to say thank you. I couldn't find this answer anywhere else- Apple Support should make this info readily accessible. Thank you again.

margb Author

Level 1

2 points

Jun 15, 2015 6:52 AM in response to dana2342

You're very welcome. But backing up important files is the only way to keep computers from driving us all screaming into the night! Even though he uses Time Machine, my husband still makes a separate copy of his key files before getting off the computer each evening. I suffered a hard drive crash at work in the '80s and it made me a little bit paranoid on the subject of backup.

But the important thing now is you got your file back, and that's great.

Marg

Jaimi

Level 1

8 points

Jun 25, 2015 8:53 AM in response to margb

Thank you very much for posting this information. This behavior by MS is probably the most poorly designed and badly thought out behavior I have seen in my development career! Several times it has bit me - Power loss, or forced reboot, and it happily auto-restores my spreadsheet. Then you continue working on it, hitting SAVE every so often, and then exit. And when you go back in, the file is GONE! Not even on the recent files list, spotlight won't find it, etc.

When it happened to me again, with the thought of losing a days work - which I THOUGHT I had been saving all along - I finally searched around enough to find your post, which led me to where it stashes it's auto-recover files, and there was my missing spreadsheet. Thank you very much! And a big raspberry to the developer who designed this ignorant behavior.

jenvb

Level 1

8 points

Jun 29, 2015 3:16 AM in response to margb

My question is WHY do I have to do through this palaver just to find my file. Could you make it a little more complicated please?

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How to find a lost file in Microsoft Office Autorecovery