Crashes happen. The power goes out. And sometimes, people accidentally close a file without saving. To avoid losing all your work when stuff like that happens, make sure AutoRecover and AutoSave are turned on:
- Click the File tab.
- Under Help, click Options.
- Click Save.
- Make sure the Save AutoRecover information every x minutes check box is selected.
- In Word 2010, Excel 2010 and PowerPoint 2010, make sure the Keep the last autosaved version if I close without saving check box is selected.
Important The Save button is still your best friend. To be sure you don’t lose your latest work, click Save 
(or press CTRL+S) often.
Tips
To be extra safe, enter a small number in the minutes box, like 10. That way, you’ll never lose more than 10 minutes of work.
On the other hand, if you want to make Office faster, try entering a larger number in the minutes box, like 20.
Learn more
AutoRecover saves more than your files. It also saves your workspace (if it can). Suppose you open several spreadsheets in Excel and the power goes out. When you restart Excel, AutoRecover tries to open your spreadsheets again, laid out the way they were before, with the same cells selected.
In Word 2010, Excel 2010, and PowerPoint 2010, AutoRecover has another benefit. It can Restore earlier versions of a file.
