AutoSave overwrote my file — the trap in Office AutoSave

AutoSave and AutoRecover are different things

AutoSave

The switch at the top left of the Word, PowerPoint and Excel window. It can only be turned on when the file is on OneDrive or SharePoint, and while it is on, every edit is saved to the original the moment you make it. The Save button has nothing left to do — and the escape hatch of "close without saving" is gone too.

AutoRecover

Keeps a separate temporary recovery copy every few minutes (10 by default). It does not touch the original. It exists to rescue unsaved work when the program crashes, and pressing Save discards the copies made in between.

The trap goes like this. You open last week’s report thinking "I’ll do this week’s in here", and the moment you change the title and the numbers, last week’s report is already gone, because AutoSave wrote every character to the original. Files you use as a template, originals someone gave you and files you have already submitted are the ones this happens to.

Going back now — Version History

AutoSave only turns on for OneDrive and SharePoint files, so those files have Version History. It is AutoSave’s other half.

1. With the file open, click File › Info › Version History (on a Mac, click the file name in the window title › Browse Version History). Right-clicking the file in File Explorer or the Finder and choosing Version history works too.
2. In the list on the right, choose a time from before you edited. AutoSave keeps a version every few minutes, so there is one close to "just before I opened it".
3. In the old version that opens, click Restore, or if you do not want to lose what you have now, use Save a Copy to keep it under another name.

If the file is still open and you edited it only a moment ago, Ctrl+Z (⌘Z on a Mac) works as well. AutoSave does not block Undo. Once you are back at the state you want, that state is autosaved again.

Working safely with AutoSave on

• A copy as soon as you open it: when you open a file you will use as an original, go to File › Save a Copy (on a Mac File › Save a Copy…) before you change anything. Work in the copy and the original stays as it was.
• Templates as templates: save a file you use every week in the same form as .dotx, .potx or .xltx. Each time you open it, a new document is created and the original does not change.
• Turn the switch off: turn AutoSave off for that document and it is saved only when you press Save, as before. The off state is remembered for each document.
• Sent files into a sent folder: move the files you have submitted into a "Sent" folder and you are far less likely to open and edit one by mistake.

How not to be here next time

If none of the above brought it back, that version is gone. A file keeps only its latest state, which is why people make one more copy before they press Save. That copy is the "report_original.docx" and "report_edited.docx" in your folder.

Octorium is a desktop app for Mac and Windows that does that job for you. Hand it the one folder you work in, save the way you always have, and each time the folder goes quiet for a moment (2 minutes by default) it records that moment. The entries are grouped under Today, Yesterday and the days of the week, each with its time, and from any line you can return the whole folder with Go back to this moment or a single file with Go back for this file only. Going back is recorded too, so going back can itself be undone.

• Nothing appears in your folder. The history is kept separately.
• Your files never leave this computer. Recording and going back both happen on this computer, and they work without the internet.
• 30 days free, no card, counted from the moment you press start in the app.

Install it from /en/download; going back is explained in the guide (/en/guide#restore).

It gets on well with AutoSave too. Octorium records whenever the folder goes quiet for a moment, however the save happened, so while AutoSave is editing the original character by character, "before I opened it" and "after I edited it" each become an entry, and you can go back to either. Hand it a working folder inside the OneDrive sync folder and still nothing appears in the folder. But a file that is only in the cloud, under "Files On-Demand", cannot be recorded, so set the folder you hand over to Always keep on this device.