LibreOffice Backup Settings to Prevent Data Loss

Configuring the built-in backup and recovery features in LibreOffice is an essential step to protect your documents against sudden system crashes, power outages, and accidental file overwrites. By enabling AutoRecovery and timed backup copies within the application’s preferences, you can ensure that previous versions of your work are automatically preserved and easily recoverable at any time.

Accessing Save and Backup Preferences

To configure backup options, open LibreOffice and navigate to the main settings window:

In the left-hand navigation pane, expand the Load/Save category and select General.

Key Backup Settings to Enable

To minimize the risk of losing work, adjust the following settings in the Save section:

1. Always create backup copy

Check the box next to Always create backup copy.

When this feature is enabled, LibreOffice creates a copy of the previously saved version of your document every time you save. The backup file is saved with a .bak extension in LibreOffice’s designated backup folder. This protects your original file from being permanently overwritten by unwanted changes.

2. Save AutoRecovery information

Check the box next to Save AutoRecovery information every and set the time interval (default is 10 minutes; reducing this to 2–5 minutes is recommended for active writing).

AutoRecovery captures the current state of your document in the background. If LibreOffice closes unexpectedly due to a crash or power failure, a Document Recovery dialog will appear the next time you open the program, allowing you to restore your unsaved changes.

3. Automatically save the document too

Check Automatically save the document too (available in newer versions of LibreOffice). This allows the application to automatically commit actual saves to the main file at the defined AutoRecovery interval, rather than only saving temporary recovery data.

Locating and Restoring Backup Files

If you need to retrieve a .bak file created by the Always create backup copy setting:

  1. Go to Tools > Options (or LibreOffice > Preferences on macOS).
  2. Expand LibreOffice in the left menu and select Paths.
  3. Locate the Backups entry to view the exact folder path on your computer.
  4. Navigate to that folder using your operating system’s file manager.
  5. Locate your file (named filename.bak), copy it to a safe folder, and rename the extension to match your document type (such as .odt, .ods, or .docx) to open it normally.