What is AutoRecover - How to configure AutoRecover time interval and AutoRecover file location
Consider below scenarios.
• You are working on an Excel file for hours. Accidently, the power failed and the computer is down.
• You are working on an Excel file for hours, but accidentally clicked "Don't Save" button when closing the file.
• You are working on an Excel file for hours, but because of some technical glitchs, your Excel program crashed.
You lost all your work because you couldn't save your Excel file in all the three scenarios mentioned above.
Don't be panic in any of above cases of system failures. You have an excellent feature in Excel called as AutoRecover to recover unsaved/crashed Excel files.
AutoRecover is a very useful feature in Excel, that automatically save Excel file periodically at certain intervals. AutoRecover file save happens in the background so users don't even realize AutoRecover is working.
By default, all Excel workbook's changes are saved automatically in every 10 minutes. This is called as AutoRecover information.
You can configure the time interval to specify how often the AutoRecover information is saved.
Follow below steps to configure Excel AutoRecover information.
Step 1 - Open "Excel Options" window from Excel Backstage View. Click the following link if you are not familiar with Excel Options Dialog Box Window.
Step 2 - Open "Save" Panel in "Excel Options" window by clicking on it.
Step 3 - Scroll to "Save workbooks" heading.
Step 4 - Configure the time interval for saving AutoRecover information in "Save AutoRecover information in every" spin button. You can select a value between 1 and 120 minutes (including 1 and 120). Fractions are not allowed.
In this example, I had selected a small AutoRecover time interval (1 minute) for more frequent AutoRecover information saves.
Step 5 - Enter the location to save AutoRecover information in "AutoRecover file location" textbox. It is suggested to use the default location unless you have a genuine reason to change it.
Step 6 - Click "OK" in "Excel Options" window to finish.
Tip
Configuring a small AutoRecover time interval ensures better chances of data recovery during a system failure, bacause changes are saved more frequently to disk as AutoRecover information. But configuring a small AutoRecover time interval value may cause in consumption of more system resources (more CPU usage and more writes on hard disk).
