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Forum Discussion
Didn't Save, Need to Recover File
Hi there. I'd been working on an Excel doc on desktop Dropbox and accidentally closed the program without saving. Now I've lost 4 hours of progress and can only restore to the version I last saved at 2pm yesterday. Isn't Dropbox supposed to autosave versions every few minutes? Please send help asap! Thank you!
- Jane
Dropbox Staff
I am hoping someone can help me-- I was working on a Mac Word document stored on Dropbox all morning-- about 3.5 hours of work-- and I have autosave and know I saved it multiple times. My computer froze up and we ended up having to do a reboot of it. When the computer started up, I noticed none of the work I did today was saved-- neither on Dropbox or my computer-- only yesterday's version is present on Dropbox and it's listed as the most current version. I've checked my delete file and previous versions on both desktop and Dropbox. Is there anything else I can do before re-writing?
- Jane
Hi Jane, thanks for the response. I am running 10.14.3 on my Mac and I'm pretty sure my Word is up-to-date. My IT dept looked into everything too and they can't find a trace of any updates between about 9 AM and noon when my system crashed. We ran a data recovery program overnight and it's only got my Wednesday draft and the work I did after it crashed to try to rewrite it. It's the weirdest thing. If we can't find it, I'll rewrite it all but it does make me nervous about using Dropbox--even though I've used it for a longtime and love it. I'm not sure there's anything that can be done to recover my file at your end? Thanks! H
- Rich
Super User II
HLMJ wrote:
I am hoping someone can help me-- I was working on a Mac Word document stored on Dropbox all morning-- about 3.5 hours of work-- and I have autosave and know I saved it multiple times.
If you had autosave enabled in Word and saved multiple times, that version of the file would still be on your local drive. Dropbox has nothing to do with that process. The versions that Dropbox can recover would be the files that Dropbox synced to your account online. If Dropbox didn't sync them, then they either weren't in your Dropbox folder or the file was never saved, and it certainly sounds like the file wasn't saving as you thought it was.
... but it does make me nervous about using DropboxDon't be. This has nothing to do with Dropbox. If the file was saved in the Dropbox folder, and Dropbox was able to access it, Dropbox would sync it. The fact that you couldn't find the file on your drive indicates that Word wasn't saving it.
Double-check that you have the Autosave feature enabled in Office.
Hi,
>If you had autosave enabled in Word and saved multiple times, that version of the file would still be on your local drive.
I do and I did. It's all very strange. I've decided to spend the time re-writing and hope it doesn't happen again. Thanks for the help! H
Today I was editing a Microsoft Word file. I saved then closed the file, then opened it again to find it had reverted to a version from 6 hours ago.
There is nothing under version history besides one from earlier today (6 hours ago) and one last night. The entire day's work has been erased. I'm certain I was connected to the internet, and I saved multiple times while editing. The DB events list shows the above versions, nothing recent. Windows' internal "Restore previous versions" feature is empty.
- Jane
Thanks for the help. So far, no solution. I've tried Microsoft's recover unsaved changes (blank) and previous versions (also blank)
Microsoft support's service says:
"Version history in Office only works for files stored in OneDrive or SharePoint Online. If you don't see this option it's possible your file is stored in a different service or on a local device."
Is this true? Does Microsoft's version history not work at all if your file is stored in dropbox?
Similar problem here.
Was trying to find the local AutoRecover file for the document, and went back through the AutoRecover folder for Word using Time Machine. Files that were locally saved on my machine (that I had open at the same time) generated an AutoRecover file, but not the file I had that was saved in Dropbox.
I'm left concluding that if a file is saved in Dropbox Microsoft Office may not make an AutoRecover file, which is pretty worrying.
Hi guys,
I found my file. Here's how I figured it out:
The file I worked on was opened in a dropbox folder on my laptop.
The "save" icon in Word actually saved the changes to "One Drive" instead of the dropbox file.
So when I opened the file in dropbox, no edits were shown.
When I use the "open" function in Word to look for recent files, it shows the saved file in "One drive". From there I was able to retrieve the file I want with my edits made today.
Basically "One Dive" is stealing control over dropbox files (and from my friend's experience even files locally saved in other destinations)
I hope this info helps you and your tech department.Best,
Lisa
