My query is:-
1. whether the auto-recovery function will save a document that has not been saved ie the save 'button' has not been used.


2. Are asd.files saved every X minutes or is only the latest one saved and the others over-written?

Autorecovery is not something you want to rely on. However, it is not something that requires that you ever saved the document.



It only makes one copy, the latest.
Likewise, if you have automatic backup turned on, it makes a backup whenever you save, overwriting any previous backup.


For true backup take a look at Graham Mayor's utilities. They are free, they are painless, and they work.

• Save in two places by Graham Mayor, MVP
• Automatically backup Word documents by Graham Mayor, MVP

Thank you for response. I thought the asd.files may keep multiple copies. The reason for this is that when I have experienced outages I am offered several versions of the documents I have worked on on the left hand side of the screen and assumed that these copies, saved every 5 minutes, would each create an asd.file. hsving said this, this has applied to documents that I had previously saved prior to an outage.

In this instance, there was no outage, I did not save a document and then deleted it some hours later.

I hope you aren't offended, but are you confident that the asd.files for a document are over-written?

Confident? Yes.
Certain? No. I never use them by seeking them out. I tend to hit the Ctrl+S after making a change.
perplex.jpg


If your files are on OneDrive automatic saving happens and there can be multiple versions.

Thanks for your time. Much appreciated