Microsoft Office Autosave will not turn on

[dnbreaks]

I've read through the posts on this thread, Autosave is stuck in off. How do I turn it on? - Microsoft Community, but none of the suggestions help my situation.

• I created a folder in my OneDrive and shared it with a colleague
• We are both on MacOS 10.14.6, Word 16.28 and OneDrive 19.152.0801.0007 (Standalone) via Office 365
• If I create a new Word .docx file, I can save it in the shared folder (or anywhere in OneDrive) and Autosave will turn on whether I save it via "On My Mac" or "Online Locations". And no matter if I reopen it from Finder or OneDrive online, the Autosave feature always works.
• If my colleague creates a new Word .docx file and saves it via the "On My Mac" window, Autosave never turns on. But if he saves it via "Online Locations" it does. However, when doing it via "Online Locations" the shared folder is not an option for him so he has to save it in one of his personal folders like Documents (the OneDrive one).
• Once the file is saved in his Documents and he quits Word and goes back into Finder and reopens the file, Autosave is no longer on and can't be turned on even on those files that were saved via the "Online Locations" method

We have tried

• complete uninstall of all Microsoft applications including OneDrive using AppCleaner and reinstalling it
• signing out of Office 365 and signing back in
• starting his computer in safe mode and running OneDrive
• doing a reset of OneDrive by
• ending all OneDrive related processes
• deleting OneDrive related items in Keychain Access
• running the ResetOneDriveAppStandalone.command in the package contents of the OneDrive app

We did have an Office 365 Business account at one time, but that proved to be more than we actually needed since it is just the two of us. So we have Office 365 and share a family account. His Autosave feature was definitely working at some point while on the family plan, but we're not sure when it quit working. About the only thing left I can think to do is reformat his hard drive and restoring it via the Time Machine backup in case there is some corrupt file that is hanging things up. But before we took those steps, I was wondering if anyone had any ideas why we can not get my colleague's Autosave to turn on and stay on. I have tried the Microsoft forums and am only getting non-useful canned responses.

 

[chscag]

My opinion:

Forget Autosave as it does not work most of the time and will lead to data loss if you depend on it. (It's turned on for me but I don't rely on it.)

Having said that, this is what I do instead of depending on Autosave:

Office 365 - Word - version 16.28 with the latest updates installed. Open Word preferences, Save, and make sure the "Always make a backup" is turned on. (checkmark) After you've done this, go to "File Locations" and specify an easy to find location for the "Auto recovery files". I use my "documents" folder which is easy for me to find for any recovery or backups.

After you've done that, Word will create a backup folder with the same name of the file it's backing up. Every time you access the file to make a change, Word will update the backup. Even if you experience a crash of the system, you will at least have the last iteration of the file you were working on in the backup folder.

Another thing: Do not use OneDrive to backup files especially if you're sharing with family or other workers.