AutoRecover, Environment, Options dialog box
Applies to: 
Visual Studio 
Visual Studio for Mac
Note
This article applies to Visual Studio 2017. If you're looking for the latest Visual Studio documentation, see Visual Studio documentation. We recommend upgrading to the latest version of Visual Studio. Download it here
Use this page in the Options dialog box to specify whether to automatically back up files or not. You can also specify if you want to restore modified files if Visual Studio shuts down unexpectedly.
To access this dialog box, go to Tools > Options > Environment > AutoRecover.
Save AutoRecover information every [n] minutes
Use this option to customize how often a file is automatically saved in the editor. For previously saved files, Visual Studio 2017 saves a copy of the file in %USERPROFILE%\Documents\Visual Studio [version]\Backup Files\[projectname]. If the file is new and you haven't saved it yet, Visual Studio autosaves it by using a randomly generated file name.
Keep AutoRecover information for [n] days
Use this option to specify how long Visual Studio keeps files created for autorecovery.