Summary

• Microsoft Word Greyed Out Text
• Autosave Is Greyed Out
• Microsoft Word Mac Auto Save Greyed Outlook

In this article, you will learn 4 effective ways to recover unsaved, lost and deleted Word document on Mac with detailed steps: [1]recover with AutoRecovery; [2]Recover from Temp folder; [3]Recover from Recovered item in Trash; [4]recover with Word file recovery software.

AutoSave is a different feature which automatically saves your file as you work - just like if you save the file manually - so that you don't have to worry about saving on the go. On the Mac, AutoSave is available in Excel, Word, and PowerPoint for Office 365 for Mac subscribers. When AutoSave is turned on AutoRecover files are rarely needed. For those applications AutoRecover files are stored in the folders we listed above. 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.

Accidentally closed Word without saving on Mac? Do you know how to recover unsaved Word documents on Mac? According to the unique features of Microsoft Word for Mac, you may find the unsaved item in the AutoRecovery folder, Temporary folder or Recovered item in Trash. Besides, if you unintentionally lost, deleted or formatted your Word document, you can recover a Word document on Mac with EaseUS Word file recovery software.

Find answers to word 2011 for mac, greyed out documents from the expert community at Experts Exchange. Mac OS X; Microsoft Word; Microsoft Excel; System environment: Mac Pro: Mac OS X 10.9.5 Mavericks (as a server configured). Solution Office for Mac 2016 autosave feature in Word. May 24, 2019 Recently updated to Mojave 10.14.5 and ever since the autosave function in MS Word, Excel, Powerpoint is greyed out (Office version 1201). Prior to the update, all files opened from OneDrive locally automatically had the autosave function. Now only files opened from the web (or online) version of OneDrive have the autosave function. Sep 23, 2019  AutoSave switch greyed out, how to fix 'The Office AutoSave feature seems greyed out and is not available to work in my Office 2016 applications. I tried to turn on the AutoSave feature in the Excel and the Word so that I can automatically save important files while editing them.

How to Recover Unsaved Word Document on Mac

Embedded with more useful features in certain collaborative situations than Pages, Microsoft Word becomes increasingly popular among Mac computers. Office 365 even allows users to create Word files on their Mac. On one hand, Microsoft Word offers standard DOC or DOCX file formats that are compatible in almost every OS platform; On the other hand, Word 2020, 2019, 2018..2011 is featured with auto-saving, which enables us to recover a Word document before we could hit Save.

Based on the features of Microsoft Word for Mac, there are three potential ways to recover your unsaved Word documents. These methods can also be applied to recover unsaved Excel files on your Mac.

#1. Recover Unsaved Word Docs on Mac with AutoRecovery

The Word for Mac includes an AutoRecovery option. It is turned on by default. The app will automatically save a copy of an open Word file every 10 minutes. If Word freezes while you're working on a document, or if the computer crashes, you can use the AutoRecovery copy to recover unsaved Word document with the changes or additions that you made in your last Word for Mac session.

Guide: How to recover an unsaved Word document

Unlike recovering unsaved Word document in Windows, the file recovery on Mac from the AutoRecovery folder is different.

Step 1. Open 'Finder' on your Mac, then head to 'Go' > 'Go to Folder'.

Step 2. Type: ~/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Word/Data/Library/Preferences/AutoRecovery and click 'Go'.

Step 3. Open the AutoRecovery folder, locate all the files that start with the words 'AutoRecovery save of'. Select the one you want to recover, rename the file, then add the '.doc' filename extension.

Step 4. Double-click the file. The document now opens in Word for Mac.

Step 5. Click the File menu and select 'Save As'. Type a new name for the file into the Name field, select a folder for the file and click the 'Save' button.

#2. Recover Unsaved Word Documents on Mac from TMP Folder

The Word for Mac saves a copy of the unsaved document named as Word Work File in the Temporary folder. Your Mac also temporarily keep files in this folder. Though for many Mac users, it's not easy to find it.

Guide: How to recover an unsaved Word document on Mac

Step 1. Go to 'Applications' > 'Utilities' and double-click 'Terminal'.

Step 2. In Terminal, enter open $TMPDIR and you will be directed to the TMP folder which is used to keep files temporarily.

Step 3. In the TMP folder, find and open the folder named 'TemporaryItems'. In it, right-click the desired unsaved Word files and 'Open with..' Microsoft Word.

Step 4. Save the Word file by clicking on 'File' > 'Save As' and save it to another location.

#3. Recover Unsaved Word Document on Mac from Recovered Item

The Word for Mac temporarily saves documents that the user has not yet saved themselves in a folder named 'Recovered items', located in the Trash. If there are no recovered files, this folder will not appear.

Guide: How to find unsaved Word files on Mac

Step 1. Open 'Trash' by clicking its icon on the dock.

Step 2. Look for a folder labeled 'Recovered items' and click into it to look for your unsaved Word file. If you cannot find it, try the next solution.

#4. Recover Deleted Word Document with Word Recovery Software

The aforementioned three ways are exclusively for saving the file you're currently working on but suddenly disappear before clicking the Save button. To be specific, the methods will only work for files that are in the process of being worked on when they disappeared. Hence, if you lost a Word doc that is already existed by deletion, disk formatting or losing its access, you need to turn to other ways to recover a Word document on Mac.

EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac is third-party specialized Mac data recovery software that can scour your hard drive, external hard drive, SD card, or USB flash drive to find all the lost data that vanishes without a trace on Mac OS X/macOS. It doesn't matter whether you emptied the trash bin or not, the deleted file will show up after you use the program to scan your selected drive.

For the first attempt, we strongly recommend you download its free version. It won't cost you a penny to search for your missing files. And since your problem is only for a few lost Word files, the 2GB recovery limit should be more than enough. The scan & recovery process is very simple, we’ll show you how it works.

Guide: How to recover a Word document on Mac

Step 1. Select the location where your important Word documents were lost and click Scan button.

Step 2. EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac will start immediately a quick scan as well as a deep scan on your selected disk volume. Meanwhile, the scanning results will be presented in the left pane.

Step 3. By Path and Type, you can quickly filter the Word files you've lost earlier. Select the target files and click Recover Now button to get them back at once.

How to Increase the Chance of Unsaved Word Data Recovery

After suffering from the fear of losing your Word documents, you must not want to experience this kind of situation again. Thus, it's necessary for you to know how to avoid losing your Word files. To avoid completely losing your files, you can:

Tip 1. Save the Word Document Whenever You Create a New One

An ever unsaved Word document exists in the computer's RAM, not on the hard disk. Thus, the chances to save a Word Document that has never been saved before are slim. Knowing this should give you a hint that you should save the word document at least once whenever you create a new one.

Tip 2. Change the AutoSave Interval

After you save your Word document, the AutoSave feature will begin to work. To minimize the loss of the progress on the file you are working, you can change the frequency of AutoSave:

Step 1. Open Microsoft Word on your Mac.

Step 2. Go to 'Word' > 'Preferences' and click 'Save' under Output and Sharing.

Step 3. Check all the items under Save Options (Recommended) and change the interval of AutoSave, for example, from every 10 minutes to every 5 minutes.

If you follow the two tips above, you will substantially decrease the risk of losing your Word documents. What if you carelessly deleted your important Word files on your Mac? No worry. Try the free method to retrieve permanently deleted Word documents with EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac.

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AutoSave is a new feature that saves changes to Office documents in real time to OneDrive and SharePoint. Let’s review how to enable it and all the details around how it works.

It’s happened to all of us. Hours of work lost because we forgot to save our work. Just when everything is perfect, CRASH. Everything is gone. Well, I have good news for you and it’s called Microsoft Office AutoSave!

AutoSave is a new featured included in the July 2017 update (version 1707 build 8236.xxxx) for Office 365 subscribers. According to Microsoft:

Save early, save often is now a thing of the past. Office AutoSave saves every few seconds so you don’t have to!

Microsoft stopped supporting it and AOL sent notices that they will no longer grant access to computers with Vista. I ran the disk and I am now upgraded to Windows 7 on this computer. Microsoft windows 8 professional upgrade 32 64 bit mac version. Install was flawless and I did not loose any of my files or programs.

Included in Excel 2016 and Powerpoint 2016, the new AutoSave feature not only saves your document every few seconds, depending on what you’re doing, it also uses a simple UI to go back through previous versions of files.

How do I enable AutoSave?

If you’ve updated to the July 2017 update, AutoSave is enabled by default when you save a file to OneDrive, OneDrive for Business or Sharepoint Online. Another nice feature about AutoSave is it also allows you to collaborate with other users who are also editing the file. Since the file is being AutoSaved automatically, any changes being made will be seen by all users almost instantly.

What, where did File > Save As go?

As I said earlier, this is a massive change as it not only adds AutoSave protection, it also changes the File menu. The Save As command has been replaced with the Save a Copy command.

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Warning: Being that changes are made instantly to the file once you start editing it, it’s important to use the Save a Copy command if you don’t want to edit the original file.

I don’t see AutoSave. What’s wrong?

It could be a couple of problems:

1. Are you running the latest update from Microsoft Office? Run the Microsoft Office manual update process to verify you’re fully updated.
2. Are you an Office 365 subscriber? If not, I highly recommend it. The 1 TB of Onedrive space alone is amazing for backing up files and photos from your mobile device.
3. If the document is stored on your local computer, AutoSave will be disabled. To enable it, you must save your document to OneDrive, OneDrive for Business or Sharepoint Online.
4. Make sure you’re not using an older file format like .xls, .ppt or .doc. For example, save your Excel file as a .xlsx and see if that solves the issue.

What happens when I click the AutoSave toggle and turn it off?

Microsoft Word Mac Auto Save Greyed Outlook

AutoSave will no longer save your document as you make changes. Instead, you will need to click the Save icon or click File > Save.