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gbrown481's avatar
gbrown481
Copper Contributor
Mar 01, 2019

Autosave

does anyone know a way to grey out the autosave feature when in excel/word? my client wants autosave to be on by default and users to not be able to switch it off at their own leisure i have set a registry key to make sure autosave is on when opening excel/word, but the users can easily just uncheck the box. Thanks in advance, Gary

5 Replies

  • Cian Allner's avatar
    Cian Allner
    Silver Contributor

    This isn't possible, Microsoft only provides a way to turn off this feature by default and not the other way around by using Group Policy:

     

    "This policy setting allows you to turn off AutoSave by default in Word. AutoSave automatically saves all changes a user makes to files that are stored in OneDrive, OneDrive for Business, or SharePoint Online. If you enable this policy setting, AutoSave is off by default in Word. But, the user can enable AutoSave for Word by going to File > Options > Save. Or, the user can enable AutoSave for a specific Word file by using the AutoSave toggle in the title bar. If you disable or don’t configure this policy setting, AutoSave is on by default, but the user can disable AutoSave by going to File > Options > Save or by using the AutoSave toggle. Note: This policy setting only applies to subscription versions of Office, such as Office 365 ProPlus."

     

    There is no policy available to lock this setting to always be on. Further details on AutoSave for admins is here:

     

    https://support.office.com/en-us/article/what-it-administrators-should-know-about-autosave-88e0f80f-e5ea-441b-9c5a-259f08490ae7

     

    Unless a user goes into the options and turns this feature off entirely, toggling the AutoSave button will only effect that particular document.   Being able to keep this feature on, I agree would be useful.

  • IM not familiar with removing or grey out this button while having the feature ON!

    I don’t like the idea either really! It could be feasible turning it off sometimes?
    I would teach users about the feature and about versioning etc instead
    • gbrown481's avatar
      gbrown481
      Copper Contributor
      the issue is if someone has autosave on and someone has autosave off, then they can overwrite each others cells. when autosave is off, it shows other users in the doc, but not where they are.
      • Yeah, figured it was something about co-auth :) any reasons why they mess with it?

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