Excel is used to conduct calculation, research, data visualization in charts, data management, data analytics. It is widely used in work and study. If you do not create a backup of Excel files, accidental deletions or changes to a file can ruin your day.

How to create auto backup for excel file

Go to File > Save As.

For Excel 2016, click “More options…” under the save location. Earlier versions of Excel: skip this

Click the Tools button then General Options in the Save As dialog window.

Check the box next to “Always create backup”

Be noticed that the backup copy saves in the same folder as the original one, if you meet hard disk failure or virus attack, you may lose the two filed simultaneously. Therefore, it is better to backup Excel file in different location. If one copy is lost, at least you have another one to recover it to the previous state.

Next, I will introduce you two ways to backup Excel file in different location, one is using Macro, the other is using a third party tool – AOMEI Backupper.

Backup excel file in different location with Macro

An Excel macro is a set of programming instructions stored in what is known as VBA code. It can be used to eliminate the need to repeat the steps of commonly performed tasks over and over again.

To begin, you need to enable Macro. Open Excel, click File ->Option ->Customize Ribbon ->check the Developer box in the list on the right. Click OK, and you’ll see the developer tab at the end of your tab list.

After enabling Macro, press Alt + F11 keys to open Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications window.

Click Insert > Module and paste below code to the Module script. See screenshot:

Sub SaveToLocations()

‘UpdateByExtendoffice20160623

ActiveWorkbook.SaveCopyAs “C:\Users\DT168\Documents\” + ActiveWorkbook.Name

ActiveWorkbook.SaveCopyAs “C:\Users\DT168\” + ActiveWorkbook.Name

ActiveWorkbook.Save

End Sub

Tips: in the macro code, you can change the saving paths as you want.

Press F5 key to run the code, and the active workbook has been saved to the locations you specified in the code.

Backup Excel file in different location by AOMEI Backupper

There is also another easy way to Backup Excel file in different location.

AOMEI Backupper Professional is a reliable software designed for your data security. You can use it to backup system, partition, hard drive, files and folder to external hard drive, cloud drive, NAS, CD/DVD, internal hard drive, etc.

You are allowed to backup specific files or folders with File Backup feature, and the Filter settings allow you to backup a certain type of files. The best part is you can schedule an automatic backup based on five modes, Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Event Triggers, Real-time Sync respectively.

This software is available to Windows system including Windows 10/8/9/XP/Visa, and it supports almost all File Systems like NTFS, FAT32, FAT16, EX2, EXT3 and other File Systems.

To backup Excel file, download AOMEI Backupper and this software first. Take USB drive as an example, let’s see how to backup excel files to a flash drive.

Step 1. Open AOMEI Backupper, at the main interface, click Backup, and select File Backup.

Step 2. At the next window, click Add File or Add Folder.

Step 3. Then it will pop up a new window, just choose Excel file that you want to backup.

If you choose Add Folder, you can click Filter settings, it will show the details for you to set a certain file extension. Type the file extension *.xls in File Inclusion Mask.

There are also File Exclusion Mask and Folder Exclusion Mask. You can use the two boxes as you want. After all the settings, click OK to go back to the File Backup interface.

Step 4. Select USB drive as the destination path. To prevent data loss from catastrophic events like hard disk failure or system crash, you can backup Excel file in different location from the original one. It is recommended to backup Excel files to external hard drive or backup to NAS.

Step 5. To backup Excel file automatically, click Schedule and choose a backup mode.

Tips: 

① By default, it will perform incremental backup which is space-saving. If you want to create full backup or differential backup, click Advanced at Schedule to change the way to perform the scheduled backup.

② There are also Options and Scheme that you can click to have more advanced settings.

  • Options: you can encrypt your backup and enable email notification by clicking Options.
  • Scheme: to make sure your backup drive will not run out of space, you can click Scheme to set auto delete old backups when the number of backup reaches a certain value.

Step 6. After all these done, click Start Backup.

If you want to real-time monitor the change and create continuous data protection, you can use the Real-Time Sync feature under Sync.

Conclusion

Creating an auto backup for Excel file is necessary to protect your files from mistaken deletion or changes. However, if you want to protect your files from disasters like hard disk failure or system crash, you should backup Excel file in different location from the source one.

As mentioned above, AOMEI Backupper supports many storages devices, you can feel free to choose one based on your practical situation.