Greyed out MS Word autosave

Hi Russell,

It is possible that the AutoSave feature in your Word app is disabled that's why it is not automatically saving to your local drive. However, for us to fully identify the root cause, we need to gather additional information. Kindly answer the following:

• Is this happening to a specific Word file?
• What troubleshooting steps have you tried so far?
• What is the current version and build number of your Office? To determine which version of Office you are using, click this link.

In the meantime, for us to isolate this issue, we suggest creating a new Word file and save it on your local drive (e.g my documents) then check if AutoSave is now enabled. If the issue still occurs, we recommend turning on AutoSave in Word manually. To do it kindly follow the instructions found in this link.

In addition, you can check this article for more information about AutoSave.

Please post back with the result for further assistance.

There are two similarly named functions in recent builds of Word 2016, AutoSave and AutoRecover.

The newer feature (first available about 6 months ago), AutoSave, works only with documents opened from OneDrive, OneDrive for Business, or SharePoint. There are no settings in the Options dialogs (at least in Word for Windows) to configure this feature; the only control is an on-off switch on the Quick Access Toolbar, which is enabled only when the open document is from the cloud. This feature does save the current document to the original file location.

The older feature, AutoRecover, works with locally saved documents. This feature is configured with the second through fourth lines of the Options > Save page.

However, the AutoRecover files do not replace manual saving of documents, because they're separate files in a separate folder. Also, if you don't recover a document within 4 days, Word will automatically delete it. For a real, usable backup system, configure the Windows 10 File History feature.

Hi.

This issue affects all Word files including  new documents. My default document save settings are set to 'Save to Computer by default' to a specific folder every 10mins and to keep last autosave version TNA. [Now, Cortana / searchbox have stopped working again.] The details requested are Microsoft Office 365 / Version 1802 (Build 9029.2167 Click-to-Run) Monthly Channel.   My suspicions seem clarified by the link above which reads:-

Hi

So basically, there is no local autosave?

Once upon a time, MS was so user friendly.

I had a local autosaving feature prior to Windows 10, at least going back to Windows 97.   I am one of the many who would pay good money for a reliable retro edition.   Cannot MS consider offering a Windows Basic edition that simply gives customers a user-friendly interface similar to those they once enjoyed [they could name it 'Windows That Works'].   Only offering Windows 10 is tantamount to a supermarket only offering pre-sugared coffee-mix with added calcium - I just want coffee without sugar or calcium.   I simply want a week to go by without spending my precious time on forums searching for solutions to reoccurring problems, new problems, and problems I've not yet encountered but probable should be aware of, being reported by people far more tech-savvy than me.   It's like having a psychotic drug addict schizophrenic as a life partner.   More often that not, whenever I am notified of an apparent solution to an issue, it is quite complex and yet still ineffective.   Remote agents take control for hours and fail to resolve issues.   Brand new computers have operating system issues from day one and the blame game starts with both the manufacturer and MS claiming the issue is the other with no-one taking responsibility.

In short - so basically, there is no local autosave?   If it is indeed an accurate answer then a simple 'no', however frustrating, would suffice.   Thank you.

There is no built-in local automatic save in Word, and really never has been. As I mentioned before, there is now an automatic local save in Windows 8.1 and 10, not limited to Office files, in the File History feature.

MVP Graham Mayor has long offered a free add-in at http://www.gmayor.com/automatically_backup.htm, and an enhanced version that saves each document in two places at http://www.gmayor.com/SaveInTwoPlacesAddIn.htm.

I can't speak to your problems with Windows 10, except to say that I don't have any of those problems. I'm old-school enough that I don't care at all about the new bells and whistles like 3D modeling and virtual reality, but they don't get in my way.

Hi Jay,

Thanks for your feedback.   Very interesting but seeming to contradict the Forum moderator above who leads me to believe that further info is required to suggest a solution.   I'm also not interested in bells and whistles but it would be nice if the most basic of features such as searchbox responded [mine typically does not] but that's for another discussion.