AutoRecover, a feature that is available in some Office applications, saves your file in the background on a periodic basis. You can set how frequently AutoRecover saves your files. For example, if you set AutoRecover to save every 5 minutes, you may recover more information in the event of data loss — such as from a power outage — than if it's set to save every 10 or 15 minutes.
Important
Do not use AutoRecover as a substitute for regularly saving your files by clicking Save
. Saving your files frequently is the best way to preserve your work.
Do any of the following:
 | Change how frequently files are automatically saved |
-
On the Word menu, click Preferences.
-
Under Output and Sharing, click Save
.
-
In the Save AutoRecover info every box, enter how frequently you want Word
to save documents.
 | Find an automatically saved file |
The next time that you open an application, files in the autorecovery folder are listed in the Open Recent list. Or you can find the files in the
/Users/username/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Office 2011 AutoRecovery.
 | Change where to automatically save files |
-
On the Word menu, click Preferences.
-
Under Personal Settings, click File Locations
.
-
Under File locations, click AutoRecover files, and then click Modify.
-
Find the location where you want to automatically save files, and then click Choose.
 | Recover text from a damaged file |
-
On the Word menu, click Preferences.
-
Under Authoring and Proofing Tools, click General
.
-
Make sure that the Confirm conversion at Open check box is selected, and then click OK.
-
On the Standard toolbar, click Open
.
-
On the Enable pop-up menu, click Recover Text from Any File.
-
Open the document.