How Often Does Google Sheets Autosave?

Google Sheets is a part of the Google Drive toolbox that allows you to view and edit spreadsheet documents in real-time. One of the major upsides of the tool is that it automatically saves all the changes that you make to a document.

However, how can you be sure that a connection loss won’t make a part of your work futile? There’s no need to worry, as Sheets can work effectively offline, too.

Read this article to find out all about Google Sheet auto and manual saving features, as well as how to use this tool offline.

The Frequency of Google Sheets Autosaves

Just like Google Slides and Docs, Google Sheets saves changes to your document in real-time. This means that every change to the file (exiting a cell, adding value, changing the format, inserting functions) will be saved.

The recently updated version of Google Sheets doesn’t always notify you that the autosave is being performed on the top of the screen. When you perform simple actions such as adding numerical values or letters to the cells, you may not get an autosave notification.

On the other hand, the app will notify you that the document is saving each time you perform a more complex task. For example, if you change the formatting of the cell, add a table, or insert a function or a formula.

Also, if you’re worried about losing data due to a connection loss, it would be best to enable the offline use option in Google Sheets. Learn more about it in the following section.

How to Use Sheets Offline

If you enable Google Sheets offline use, you can view and modify your documents even without an internet connection.

The offline document will sync to the version on the Cloud so Google Sheets will autosave even when the connection is down. Once the power returns, the online version will be updated with the changes you’ve performed while offline.

Make sure that you have a connection the first time you want to enable offline use. Also, you should use Google Chrome and add the official Google Docs Offline extension. Then, do the following:

1. Sign in to your Google account on Chrome.
2. Go to your Google Drive settings
3. Tick the box next to the ‘Create, open, and edit your recent Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides files on this device while offline’ option.
   
4. Open your Google Drive.
5. Right-click on a Sheet file that you want to use offline. If you want to save multiple documents, you can hold Ctrl (PC) or Command (Mac) and click on other files.
6. Toggle the ‘Available offline’ option.
   
7. Return to your Google Drive Home page.
8. Click the ‘Offline Preview’ button on the top of the page (the checkmark above a horizontal line in a circle).
9. Toggle ‘Offline Preview.’

The next time you lose connection, you can access your Google Drive using ‘Offline Preview.’ You’ll be able to view and edit all the documents that you’ve made available offline.  Google Sheets will continue to save the changes automatically after each update.

See Version History

With the recent update of Google Sheets, new versions of the document are recorded less frequently. This makes tracking minor changes a bit less transparent than before, but it will save a new version of the document after each major change.

Also, you can manually save a version so you can go back to it in the future. To do this, you need to:

1. Click the ‘File’ menu on the top of your document.
2. Hover with your cursor over ‘Version history.’
3. Click ‘Name current version’ When the menu expands.
   
4. Assign a name to the version and confirm.

If you want to revert to a previously saved version of the document, follow the first two steps above and then click ‘See Version History.’  To go back to a previous version, you need to do the following:

1. Click on the desired version to the right of the screen.
2. Click the green ‘Restore this version’ button on the top-left of the screen.

No Need to Worry With Sheets

When you’re using Google Sheets, you don’t have to worry about losing valuable work. The autosave feature should work automatically, recording every change that you make.

If your sheet doesn’t update automatically, you should check the quality of your internet connection. Also, there’s a chance that the feature won’t work properly if your browser’s cache is overloaded. In that case, clearing cache and history should resolve the issue.

Do you often save different Google Sheets versions? How frequently do you restore previous versions of the document? Share your opinion in the comments below.