How to Backup Excel Files to a Flash Drive (4 Useful Methods)

There are many risk factors for which we can lose our essential Excel files. So it’s vital to keep backups. Excel offers some exclusive ways to create a backup. From this article, you will learn 4 smart ways to backup Excel files to a flash drive.

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4 Ways to Backup Excel Files to a Flash Drive

1. Manually Backup Excel Files to a Flash Drive

2. Automatically Backup Excel Files to a Flash Drive

3. Apply Always Create Backup Option to Backup Excel Files

4. Embed Excel VBA to Backup Files to a Flash Drive

Conclusion

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You can download the free Excel template from here and practice on your own.

Backup Excel Files.xlsm

4 Ways to Backup Excel Files to a Flash Drive

This is the sample dataset that I’ll use to create a backup. It represents some Salesperson’s Sales.

1. Manually Backup Excel Files to a Flash Drive

First, we’ll learn the most common manual way to backup Excel files- just Save a Copy to a specific drive.

Steps:

Click on File beside the Home tab.

Then select Save As from the appeared options.

After that click Browse.

Later, select your desired folder from the specific flash drive and press Save.

Now see that a backup copy is created in that folder of the specific drive.

2. Automatically Backup Excel Files to a Flash Drive

Excel has a helpful feature that can backup a file by saving it automatically in the desired folder of a flash drive. So somehow if we lose a file then we can easily recover from it. We can set the saving time interval too.

Steps:

Click File beside the Home tab.

Then click Options from the appeared menu.

A dialog box named Excel Options will open up.

Click on Save.
Later, mark Save AutoRecover information every and set the time. I set 10 minutes.
Then write the folder location in the AutoRecover file location box.
Finally, just press OK.

Now if you work on an Excel file or edit a workbook then Excel will automatically Save it after every 10 minutes in that location.

See, I didn’t save manually but Excel has created a backup automatically in that location after 10 minutes.

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3. Apply Always Create Backup Option to Backup Excel Files

There is another option in Excel by which Excel creates a backup when every time you save a file. That means what you save in your main file, will be saved automatically in the backup file too. That option is called- Always Create Backup.

Steps:

Follow the first three steps from the first method to open the Save As dialog box.
Then select General Options from the Tools drop-down list.

Later, mark Always create backup.

At this moment, just press Save.

Have a look now, a backup of the file is created in the exact location on the drive. The backup file name will be the same as the original name including the text- ‘Backup’ in front of the original name. And keep in mind that you can’t change the location in this method.

4. Embed Excel VBA to Backup Files to a Flash Drive

Excel VBA is also a way to backup a file on a specific flash drive. We’ll mention the drive location in the codes and Excel will save automatically in that location.

Steps:

Press Alt + F11 to open the VBA window.
Then click as follows: Insert >> Module to create a new module.

Next, type the following codes in the module-

Sub Backup_Files()
ActiveWorkbook.SaveCopyAs "D:\ExcelDemy\" + ActiveWorkbook.Name
ActiveWorkbook.Save
End Sub

Now just press the Run icon.

Code Breakdown

First, I created a Sub procedure Backup_Files.
Then used SaveCopyAs to save a copy of the active workbook.
Later, used Name to set the same name from the active workbook.
Finally, Save will save the file with that name in the mentioned location.

After appearing in the Macros dialog box, select the specified Macro Name.
Finally, just press Run.

Here you see, a backup copy is saved in the flash drive that is mentioned in the codes.

Conclusion

I hope the procedures described above will be good enough to backup Excel files to a flash drive. Feel free to ask any question in the comment section and please give me feedback.