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AutoSave in Office 2016 lets you go back to earlier versions of documents

How to Recover an Unsaved Microsoft Word 2010 Document in Seconds How to Recover an Unsaved Microsoft Word 2010 Document in Seconds Did a power failure or Windows crash occur in a Microsoft Office document you were working on? Maybe you accidentally closed an unsaved document. Here's how to recover your draft and restore your work. Read More But there is more than one way to save yourself from a bad day..

AutoSave for Microsoft Office 2016 It is a balm for our forgetfulness..

The new feature arrived with the July 2017 update for Office 365 subscribers. You can see it as a new toggle button in the Upper Left Corner in Excel 2016 and PowerPoint 2016.

Activating AutoSave

Here's the important thing: AutoSave works with files you store in OneDrive, OneDrive for Business, or SharePoint Online. That is, it automatically saves all the changes you make to your files in the cloud.

AutoSave in Office 2016 lets you go back to earlier versions of documents

AutoSave is a small but significant feature for better collaboration because your team members will also be able to see saved changes in real time. Microsoft says AutoSave will save every few seconds, though the time may vary depending on what you're working on.

You can also use the AutoSave function as a version control system . Go back through the save history and open that particular version of the save file. If you don't want a particular change to be saved, you can restore a previous version of the file. This will convert that previous version to the current version.

Is the button off??

If you see the button is off, just hover over it and the tooltip will tell you why. For example, if the file is saved to any other location such as your desktop, then the button is turned off.

You can turn off the button. AutoSave will no longer automatically save your document as you make changes. Instead, you will need to click the Save icon or click File> Save .

And don't worry The old Self-recovery feature in Microsoft Office has not gone anywhere. A sudden crash will not delete your file completely. But check the time interval you have set in the options.

Is it a reliable alternative?

Auto save requires you to stay online. Also, saving your document to OneDrive after every few seconds will also depend on your bandwidth. I haven't tested it with a large file that could easily be a PowerPoint Presentation.

So, as an Office 365 subscriber, do you think AutoSave is the SOS button we need? Have you tested it in less than favorable working conditions?