[Tips] AutoSave is Grayed Out or Not Working in Office, Word, Excel

"AutoSave option is grayed out, how to resolve?"

"The Office AutoSave feature appears to be disabled and is unavailable in my Office 2016 applications. I attempted to activate the AutoSave feature in both Excel and Word to ensure automatic saving of crucial files while editing them. Nonetheless, I found that AutoSave was not functioning in either Word or Excel. I am currently forced to manually save and back up my Word and Excel document files. Does anyone have a solution to fix the AutoSave issue and re-enable automatic file saving in Word/Excel?"

According to the Microsoft community, the issue of AutoSave not functioning or being unavailable has persistently caused problems for regular users in saving and backing up important Office Excel or Word files. So, how can you fix the problem of the AutoSave toggle being grayed out? And is it possible to automatically back up Word or Excel, and other Office files when the AutoSave feature is not working? Thankfully, reliable solutions to this issue have been discovered, and they are available here to assist you.

Resolve AutoSave Not Working, Grayed Out, or Unavailable Error Instantly

If your Microsoft Office Word or Excel is not functioning to automatically save files or unable to create temporary files for the document currently being edited, follow the provided solutions to resolve this issue that you are currently encountering.

Method 1: Utilize AutoSave Alternative for Backing Up Office, Word, and Excel Files

When the AutoSave feature isn't functioning on your computer for saving or backing up Word, Excel files, you can resort to an alternative tool - Todo Backup, which enables you to automatically back up your files with just a few simple clicks.

Todo Backup can only help you automatically back up saved Word or Excel document files. If you want to auto-save files that are being edited, you'll need to save them manually.

If you wish to automatically back up target Office files like Word or Excel documents using a 100% free tool, Todo Backup Free can be of assistance. You can now install and utilize this free alternative software to easily back up your Word or Excel files:

Step 1. Launch Todo Backup tool and choose "Create Backup" on the home page, then click "Select backup contents".

Step 2. Click "OS" among the four available categories to begin the backup process.

Step 3. The system partition will be selected automatically, you just need to choose the location.

Step 4. You can save the backup file to your Local Drive, Cloud, or NAS. You can also connect an external hard drive to store the system backup files.

Step 5. You can customize the settings in "Options" at the bottom left corner. After that, click "Backup Now", and the process will commence.

*Upon completing the backup process, you can check the backup status, recover, open, or delete the backup by right-clicking the backup task on the left.

After the first full backup, your Excel, Word, or even PPT and other Office files will be backed up automatically with no further action required.

Method 2: Attempt to enable the AutoSave feature in Office, Excel, and Word

When the AutoSave feature fails to automatically save your files in Word or Excel, you can attempt to enable the AutoSave function within the Office application to determine if it resolves the issue. Here, we will use Excel as an example to illustrate how to enable the AutoSave feature in Excel and other Office applications like Word: 1. Open the Excel file for which you want to enable AutoSave. 2. Click on the "File" tab in the upper-left corner of the window. 3. From the File menu, select "Options" to open the Excel Options dialog box. 4. In the Excel Options dialog, navigate to the left pane and click on "Save." 5. Under the Save section, locate the "AutoRecover" settings. 6. Check the box next to "Save AutoRecover information every ___ minutes." You can set the interval according to your preference (usually every 10 or 15 minutes). 7. Below that, ensure that the "If AutoRecover is enabled, save copies of my work" option is checked. 8. Next, find the "AutoSave" settings. If you're using Office 365, you'll see an option for "Save AutoRecovery information in this location:" followed by a path. This indicates that AutoSave is already active for cloud-based files. For desktop versions without AutoSave, this option might not be available. 9. If you're using a desktop version and want to enable AutoSave with OneDrive, click "Manage" next to "Save As Default" and choose "OneDrive - [Your Name]." 10. Click "OK" to apply the changes and close the Excel Options dialog. 11. Now, your Excel file should automatically save at the specified intervals. Remember that the process might be slightly different for Word, but the general steps remain the same: navigate to File > Options > Save, and configure the AutoSave and AutoRecover settings accordingly.

Step 1. Open an Excel or Word file, then go to "File" and click "Options."

Step 2. Navigate to "Save" and select "Save AutoRecover information every minutes" to activate the AutoRecover feature in the Word/Excel application.

With this, you'll be able to save your Excel or Word document every minute as you desire.
As we all know, AutoSave is activated when you save your file on a cloud service like OneDrive, OneDrive for Business, or SharePoint. To enable the AutoSave feature now, you can follow these steps below:

Step 3. Open a Word or Excel file, then choose "File" > "Account" > "Update Options" > "Update Now".

Step 4. Open the Office app, click "File" > "Open," and browse to the server location (OneDrive or SharePoint).

Step 5. Use a web browser to open the file directly from OneDrive or SharePoint where it's stored.

After this, you should be able to autosave Word or Excel files on your own now.

Method 3: Uninstall and Reinstall the Office Application to Fix the Non-Functional AutoSave Feature

The last method you can attempt to fix the non-functional AutoSave feature in Office applications is to uninstall and reinstall Office on your computer.

You can directly uninstall it from your computer and then download it again from the Windows Store to reinstall on your PC.

After that, sign in to your Office account if you have one and then see if the AutoSave feature is accessible now.