How to Turn Off Auto Save in Excel

The Excel auto-save feature is a lifesaver that saves your important files in time times of an unexpected crash or shutdown.

However, there are some instances when you might need to turn off the auto save feature and take control in your hands 💪

It could be while working on a sensitive file or controlling the version manually. Luckily, just as Excel turns off the auto save, it offers options to disable the auto save as well.

In this guide, we will see how you can turn off auto save for Windows and Mac OS. Download our sample workbook here to practice turning off auto save in real-time ⏰

Table of Contents

What is auto save in Excel?

Auto save is a feature in Microsoft Office that automatically saves your workbook to the PC at regular intervals after every 10 minutes by default.

It is found in all Office applications and it is useful in preventing data loss by saving the previous version of your file in case of an unexpected system crash or if you forget to save manually 🤔

The autosave feature is utilized best in a shared workbook when multiple users are working on the same file at one time so all the changes remain up to date.

Why should you turn off auto save in Excel?

Even though having the auto recover feature is beneficial, there can be multiple reasons why you might want it disabled. We’ve listed some below 🔽

1. When working on a large file, continuously saving it can reduce performance. Disabling autosave in Excel can improve its responsiveness time and overall performance.
2. If working on a sensitive document where you don’t want every change to be saved to the file, turning off the autosave feature will give you more control over your file.
3. Saving a certain version of your file manually might be difficult with autosave turned on. To maintain versions better, it is better to turn off autosave.
4. If you’re only experimenting and trying out different things and don’t want each change to be saved to the file, disabling the autosave can be a good option.

How to disable autosave in Excel in Windows

Now that we know in what scenarios we might need to disable autosave in Excel, let’s see how to do it below.

Disable AutoSave from Excel Options

To turn off autosave from Excel options,

Step 1) Open the file 📗

Step 2) Go to the File tab in the upper left corner.

Step 3) At the bottom left corner of the window, select Options.

Step 4) The Excel Options dialogue box will appear on the screen.

Step 5) From the Categories, select Save 📂

Step 6) Under the Save Workbooks section, find the AutoSave OneDrive and SharePoint Online files by default on the Excel option – this option is the same for PowerPoint and Microsoft Word.

Step 7) If the checkbox is ticked, uncheck it – if not, leave it as it is.

Step 8) Press Ok.

And it’s done! The Autosave option has now been turned off. Your file will now not be saved to your PC by default.

Easy, no? 😃

Disable AutoSave from Ribbon

Another easy and quick way to disable the autosave feature in Excel is to use the ribbon – Excel’s arsenal that has everything you can ask for 🎀

To disable autosave from ribbon,

Step 1) Look for the Autosave toggle button at the top left corner of the window.

Step 2) If it is highlighted or turned on, click it to turn it off.

Voila! Autosave has been disabled from your active file.

How cool is that? 🤠

This option is preferred by people more as it is easy to access and only saves the changes made for the current file. This means turning off autosave from the ribbon won’t turn it off for Excel.

It will only disable it from the currently opened file – this saves a lot of time and effort you would need to make it turn on autosave for each file after disabling it.

How to turn off auto save in Mac OS

Turning off auto save in Mac OS is pretty simple. The process is the same, there is only a little difference in the options.

Disable AutoSave from Preferences

To disable autosave through Preferences,

Step 1) Open the Excel workbook 📗

Step 2) Click on Excel at the top corner of the window.

Step 3) Select Preferences from the options.

Step 4) The Preferences dialogue box will appear on the screen.

Step 5) Under Sharing and Privacy, select the Save option.

Step 6) The Save dialog box will appear.

Step 7) Uncheck the Turn on AutoSave by default option.

Tada! The Autosave has been turned off ❌

Disable AutoSave from Ribbon

Just like Windows, you can turn off the auto save feature from the ribbon in Mac OS.

To disable auto save from ribbon,

Step 1) Look for the Autosave toggle button at the top left corner of the window.

Step 2) If it is highlighted or turned on, click it to turn it off.

Voila! Autosave has been disabled from your active file.

Wasn’t that easy? Try it now! 🤓

Benefits of turning off auto save in Excel

Disabling autosave in Excel has as many disadvantages as advantages. If it allows you to control versions of your Excel file it also increases the risk of losing your work.

Similarly, if you turn off auto save in Excel, you will have to remember to save the file manually after every little while which is not only time-consuming but also error-prone 😵

Turning off autosave also helps avoid compatibility issues for macro enabled files etc. If you have it enabled, the changes are saved automatically so you don’t have to worry about anything.

The good part is that your data can’t be automatically overwritten. In case of a mistake or something, if you close the file with only the last version saved, the error won’t appear again.

All in all, it is the individual’s choice which options he prefers better.

Conclusion

In this guide, we saw how to turn off auto save in Microsoft Excel. We saw how to turn off the auto save feature from Excel options and Ribbon 🎀

We also learned in this guide how you can achieve the same solution in Windows and Mac OS. Having autosave enabled in your Excel file is necessary at times and very beneficial too.

However, some tasks may require you to disable the autosave feature. It gives you more control over your file and prevents any overwrites in the file.

To learn more about Excel and saving files, give the articles below a read.

How to Recover an Unsaved Excel File (5 Free Solutions)

How to Open Excel in Safe Mode Step-by-Step (+ Shortcut)

What is an Excel Workbook and How to Create One (2024)

We hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as we did crafting it! 🤗