You can use AutoSave feature in excel to avoid such situation. It is a simple feature that helps you a lot by saving your time by saving workbook automatically.
Where you can use AutoSave effectively?
- If you are working for long time in a workbook, you can use this feature to avoid data loss by automatically saving your workbook every short time.
- If the workbook that you are using is shared, this feature updates the status automatically every short interval.
AutoSave is an add-in feature installed with Microsoft Excel. You can find the command Add-Ins on the Tools menu. Click Add-Ins and select ‘Autosave Add-in’ from the list of inbuilt features. Now you can see that Autosave option has been added into Tool menu.
This feature prompts you every 10 minutes whether to save the workbook or not. You can customize the settings by clicking ‘Autosave’ on Tool menu.
A dialogue box appears. You can change the default 10 minutes into any number of minutes (1 to 120 minutes) that you want. By selecting the ‘Save all open workbooks’ you even save the active and inactive workbooks at a time. When the particular interval time reaches excel prompts you whether to save or skip changes. If you want to save changes click save option else skip option to continue your work.
If you do not like to get prompted every time, then you need to turn off ‘Prompt before saving’ option. As a result, whenever the interval time passes Excel saves your work automatically without prompting you each time.
Note: If the add-in is not installed on your computer, you can install it using the ''Add / Remove programs' in Control panel. It is very simple. Click on 'Microsoft Office' or 'Microsoft Excel' in the list and click 'Install / Uninstall' tab. Insert the Installation CD to locate the add-in feature.