6 Steps to Ensure You Never Lose a Microsoft Office File Again

Protect your Microsoft Office documents: Seven easy steps to avoid data loss

Microsoft Office documents range from business plans to novels. The consequences of losing documents are possible, from frustrating to disastrous. Fortunately, the precautions are not complicated. The following seven steps can effectively ensure the safety of your work results:

1. Three backup principles: the basis of document security

IT practitioners are well aware of the risk of data loss. They often say:

"There are only two types of people in the world: people who have lost their data, and people who are about to lose their data."

Many people think that data loss will not happen to themselves, but in fact, it is almost inevitable. Whether this is a minor trouble or a major disaster depends entirely on whether you have a backup.

"Unless you have at least three copies, the document does not exist." This sentence further emphasizes the importance of backup. You need more than one backup, but two. Some types of failures can cause you to not only lose a working copy of your document, but also lose a backup. For example, if you save a backup copy on your external hard drive at home or office and a fire breaks out on the building. My personal suggestion: "One of the backups should be stored in another place."

2. Enable the automatic save function

This feature is only available to Microsoft 365 subscribers. Look for the AutoSave switch in the upper left corner of the window and turn it on.

AutoSave requires your document to be stored in OneDrive or SharePoint folders. If your document is not already stored in these locations, go to File > Save As and select OneDrive. (You need to log in to your Microsoft account to see this option, if it is still invisible, select the "Add Location" option.)

You should then continue to edit with this version in order to protect your work.

3. Open OneDrive backup

If you store documents locally on a Windows PC or Mac, you can be sure to back up the entire folder to OneDrive. You only need to do this once, after which you will have an online backup available if any problems occur on your computer.

Windows system:

Click the OneDrive (cloud) icon in the system tray to open OneDrive. Click the gear icon in the upper right corner and select Settings. Click the Sync and Backup tab, and then click the Manage Backup button. Check that the folder you are using (for example, "Documents") is being backed up. If not, just turn it on.

This feature may be enabled by default on Windows 11 systems.

Mac system:

You need to use a standalone OneDrive app downloaded from the Microsoft website, and must be this version. Mac App Store version cannot be used for this purpose (thanks, Microsoft).

After installing the application, you need to grant it full disk access. Click on the Apple menu in the upper left corner and click on System Settings. Click "Privacy and Security" and scroll down to "Full Disk Access" and click it (or search for "Full Disk Access" in the settings search bar). Turn on the OneDrive switch.

OneDrive is located in the Mac menu bar and appears as a cloud icon. Click it, and then click on the three dot menu. Then click "Preferences" > "Backup" > "Manage Backup". If your folder appears as Backed Up Files, everything works fine. Otherwise, just click on the Start Backup option for the folder you want to back up.

4. Automatically back up your PC or Mac

Even if you are working in the cloud, it is a good idea to make sure your PC or Mac is backed up, and the only reliable way to do this is to make sure it is done completely automatically. Manual backups are always forgotten when you are busy with work, and this is exactly when backups are most likely to be needed.

You need an external hard drive that is larger than the internal hard drive of the computer. It is recommended to use a hard drive about twice the size. For example, if your PC or Mac hard drive is 1TB, you can use a 2TB external hard drive. This creates enough space for multiple document versions, so if you accidentally delete a bunch of text and realize you need it, you can recover it from previous versions.

First connect your external hard drive.

Windows system:

In Windows 10, go to "Start" > "Backup Settings". In Windows 11, go to Start > File History. In both cases, continue to select "Add Drive" > "More Options" and select your external hard drive.

Mac system:

On a Mac, after connecting to an external hard drive, you will be asked if you want to use it as a Time Machine drive. Click "Yes". (If this does not happen, go to the Time Machine icon in the menu bar—the arrow surrounding the clock counterclockwise—and open Time Machine settings. Click the plus sign and select your drive.)

5. Regular "Save As" copy of large documents

If your file's current version is corrupted, or you make a catastrophic mistake like accidentally deleting half of the text, it's a good idea to have multiple versions of the document. The easiest way is to do "Save As" periodically and then add a number to the file name.

For example, if your document is called "My Novel", then perform the "Save As" operation, name it "My Novel 001". Next time, name it "My Novel 002", and so on.

How often you do this depends on yourself, but I personally recommend that you at least once a day. If your documentation is very important, or you are working at a fast pace, you may need to do this more often. Once the work is done and after it is submitted, you can delete all previous versions to restore disk space.

6. Save a local/cloud copy at the end of each work

If the document is stored in the cloud (such as OneDrive), at the end of each work, "save it as" to your PC or Mac. Instead, if your working copy is on your computer, save it as a cloud — which could be OneDrive, iCloud, Dropbox, or any other cloud service you use. In this way, no matter how disaster occurs in your computer or cloud company, you will be protected.

7. U disk backup of important documents

Lastly, if your document is very important, or if the loss of a day of work will make you cry, you may need to create a final backup by copying the document to a USB drive and taking it with you every night carry. If you follow all these steps, you should be able to withstand any disasters other than the impact of the Earth by giant meteorites – in which case you may not have to worry about submitting your job.

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