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 AnitaLise,

    AnitaLise AnitaLise Aug 27, 2015 4:10 PM in response to MLnash
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 27, 2015 4:10 PM in response to MLnash

    Many thanks MLnash! Finder could not locate a file that was saved multiple times. This worked. 8 solid hours of work in Excel recovered.

  • by karobertson,

    karobertson karobertson Sep 4, 2015 2:10 PM in response to lulugingembre
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 4, 2015 2:10 PM in response to lulugingembre

    MLnash really helped me--but I can't figure out how to tell MLnash and express my huge gratitude.  Saved my syllabus.

  • by deborahfromvenezia,

    deborahfromvenezia deborahfromvenezia Sep 24, 2015 9:22 PM in response to MLnash
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 24, 2015 9:22 PM in response to MLnash

    Thank you so much. I did follow your process, but the only files I found were Word Docs. I am looking for PowerPoint. I cut the paragraph I needed and then somehow lost it. Now I can't remember what I had written after hours........I checked to see if I had autosave turned on and I do. Word docs (only three and I must have 10GB of Word Docs), but nothing else. Do you have any other ideas.

     

    Thank you again.

  • by AW1980,

    AW1980 AW1980 Nov 14, 2015 2:57 PM in response to MLnash
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 14, 2015 2:57 PM in response to MLnash

    Joining in on the love to MLnash!! Thanks for being in the right place at the right time with the right info! You saved me hours of rewriting a paper, and I love you.

  • by SMCATL,

    SMCATL SMCATL Dec 19, 2015 4:06 PM in response to MLnash
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 19, 2015 4:06 PM in response to MLnash

    Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you. I spent three hours last night (the wee ones, as it happens) on the Apple support pages trying to find the location of my auto recovery files--in or out of time machine--with no luck. I finally went to bed furious. I just tried once more and came across your message and EUREKA!!!--there's my missing file! I don't have to rewrite this miserable manuscript. Bless you!

  • by cgainor,

    cgainor cgainor Mar 1, 2016 9:45 AM in response to MLnash
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 1, 2016 9:45 AM in response to MLnash

    OH MY GOODNESS THANK YOU

  • by eddyL1,

    eddyL1 eddyL1 Mar 25, 2016 1:40 AM in response to MLnash
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mar 25, 2016 1:40 AM in response to MLnash

    YOU HAVE JUST SAVED ME! If I knew who you were personally I would take you out to dinner or something to repay you!

  • by tguy188,

    tguy188 tguy188 Mar 30, 2016 5:22 PM in response to MLnash
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mar 30, 2016 5:22 PM in response to MLnash

    Can I buy you dinner? You saved my life!!!!!!!!!

  • by deannajsee,

    deannajsee deannajsee Apr 12, 2016 11:16 PM in response to lulugingembre
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Notebooks
    Apr 12, 2016 11:16 PM in response to lulugingembre

    Hi Everyone,

     

    I'm trying to locate the auto recovery file for an unsaved word document. I'm on OS X and tried the above mentioned solution : Click Finder > Go > Hold down the Option key and choose Library > Application Support > Microsoft > Office > Office 2011 AutoRecovery.

     

    However, the Microsoft folder doesn't even exist in Application support?! I checked my word settings and it is set up to save documents for AutoRecovery every 10 mins. I've been searching for hours on how to recover the file but can't find anything related to my situation. Hope someone can help

     

    Thanks!

  • by JenCheers,

    JenCheers JenCheers Apr 28, 2016 7:38 PM in response to MLnash
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Apr 28, 2016 7:38 PM in response to MLnash

    THANK YOU SO MUCH! I was led to this post from another very useful post and it saved me a full day of work. I had saved the excel file many times throughout the day but when I closed it it disappeared! The name I had given it didn't show up in Finder or Spotlight.  You have saved me a full day of re-doing work!

  • by andyfromemsworth,

    andyfromemsworth andyfromemsworth May 16, 2016 4:56 AM in response to MLnash
    Level 1 (4 points)
    May 16, 2016 4:56 AM in response to MLnash

    Saved me THANK YOU!!!!!

  • by mightypog,

    mightypog mightypog May 23, 2016 1:55 PM in response to lulugingembre
    Level 1 (4 points)
    May 23, 2016 1:55 PM in response to lulugingembre

    Here's how I did it, only a slight variation of other processes I read here. I went to the Go menu, clicked that while holding down the option key to bring up the Library menu. From there the path was Library>Application Support> Microsoft>Office >Office 2011 Autorecovery

     

    That wasn't the last step. I found a number of documents, including some titled Autorecovery save of Document2 and so on, some Word files ending with .docx, others blank white with no suffix at all. I could tell they were probably the right ones because of the date, but when I tried to open them I got this error message:

     

    Word can't open the file because the file format does not match the file extension.

     

    So I dragged each one out to the desktop. Those with docx I changed to doc. To those with no suffix I added .doc.

     

    AND I FOUND MY FILE!!!!!

     

    Hope it helps someone!

  • by Janet W. Brunk,

    Janet W. Brunk Janet W. Brunk Jun 2, 2016 1:54 AM in response to lulugingembre
    Level 1 (32 points)
    Jun 2, 2016 1:54 AM in response to lulugingembre

    Yes, YES, YES you can!! IF you use Apple's Time Machine Software, which absolutely all Mac users should be using!

     

    Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac programs, Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc. all have Auto-Recover (by default set to every 10 minutes), and save the Auto-Recover files to a folder that is a bit hard to find, because it's hidden way at Users > usernamehomefolder > Library > Application Support > Microsoft > Office > Office 2011 AutoRecovery.  You can change the AutoRecovery folder location, and you SHOULD change it to a Dropbox (or iCloud) folder location as described here:

    The problem is, if you "Don't Save" when you close a file, the file will not be saved, AND the AutoRecover file will be deleted! Auurgh!Windows users, have the option to "Keep the last autosaved version if I close without saving" as described here:

    But Mac users do not have that option!

    But here's the trick: Time Machine may have created a Backup of the AutoRecover file! By default, Time Machine creates a backup once per hour, although you can change the backup frequency as desrcibed here:

    Understand that it is better to plan in advance by saving frequently, and using Dropbox for your AutoRecovery folder, but if you have Time Machine you are likely able to recover your AutoRecover file after clicking "Don't Save".

    1. "Enter Time Machine" by clicking the Time Machine icon on the menu bar
    2. Navigate to the last Time Machine Backup
    3. Navigate to the AutoRecovery folder, which by default is at Users > usernamehomefolder > Library > Application Support > Microsoft > Office > Office 2011 AutoRecovery
    4. "Restore" the AutoRecover file (it will ask what folder you want to restore the file to)
    5. Open the AutoRecover file, and re-save your recovered work.
  • by BeccaMN,

    BeccaMN BeccaMN Jun 10, 2016 9:07 AM in response to MLnash
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Jun 10, 2016 9:07 AM in response to MLnash

    This reply just saved me! THANK YOU THANK YOU 100 TIMES

  • by tarlovskyy,

    tarlovskyy tarlovskyy Sep 27, 2016 10:32 AM in response to lulugingembre
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Sep 27, 2016 10:32 AM in response to lulugingembre

    I know it's late but this might be very helpful for anyone who installed MacOs Sierra.

     

    ~/Library/Preferences/AutoRecovery/FILE(autosaved).xls

     

    I installed Sierra and couldn't run any of Microsofts products and the autosaved file wasn't yet indexed by the OS.

     

    After installing a new version of MS Excel i went into recent and found all the missing files there.

     

    Wrote down the dir for anyone having the same problem.

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