Losing important spreadsheet data can happen to anyone—whether you are creating a household budget or company invoices. Fortunately, LibreOffice Calc offers a simple automatic backup feature that can save your work. Check how to enable this setting step by step.

Why is it worth using backups in Calc?
Even if you save your files regularly, you may accidentally overwrite them, delete formulas, or lose data during a system failure. An enabled backup copy saves an earlier version of the file, allowing you to restore it easily when needed.

How to enable a backup copy in LibreOffice Calc?

Launch LibreOffice Calc and open any file.

Go to the menu:
Tools → Options
(On macOS: LibreOffice → Preferences)

In the left panel, select:
Load/Save → General

Check the box:
Always create backup copy

(Optional) Set AutoRecovery information to be saved automatically every 5 minutes, for example.

Click OK to save the settings.

Where does LibreOffice save backup copies?

By default, files are stored in the folder:

C:\Users\Your_Name\AppData\Roaming\LibreOffice\4\user\backup
(on Windows)

or:

~/.config/libreoffice/4/user/backup
(on Linux)

You can also set your own backup folder in:

Options → LibreOffice → Paths

What is worth knowing about backup copies?

Each new backup copy overwrites the previous one.

A backup is created when the file is manually saved (Ctrl + S).

You can open a backup file and compare it with the current document.