Word document missing or loss hits you when significant changes made to a Word document cannot be saved due to power failure or the Word processor’s abrupt crashing. Be easy, Microsoft Word processor features a fantastic function – AutoRecovery, which saves your files and documents every 10 minutes by default.
Except for unsaved Word documents, however, you may also be desperate for methods to recover the files and data that have been deleted or lost accidentally. Don’t worry, this post walks you through how to recover files that are unsaved, deleted, lost, or replaced when running Microsoft Word on Windows with clear steps.
Recover unsaved Word documents with AutoRecovery on Windows
AutoRecovery is one of the best features of Microsoft Word, which remains your changes to the Word document automatically every 10 minutes when settings are in place. However, changes made within 9 minutes before closing the application cannot be saved. What’s noteworthy is that AutoRecovery doesn’t replace Save but it works best when a sudden case strikes, for example, unexpected application shutdown or PC power off.
As a general rule, what you need to recover the unsaved Word document on your Windows is to relaunch the Microsoft Office Word app. Then you will be prompted with a new popup to let you obtain the unsaved file that you were working on.
If this method fails to get your unsaved file back, you’re allowed to find the missing Word document manually. Now, this article walks you through how to recover the Word document that was not saved on Windows with AutoRecovery.
Step 1: Launch the Microsoft Word app on your PC, click “File” and then select “Options”. In the left sidebar, click “Save”, copy the AutoRecover file location path and then paste it into File Explorer.
Step 2: Navigate to File Explorer, find the unsaved Word document, and copy the .asd file.
Step 3: Head to the Word processor, click “File” > “Open” > “Recover Unsaved Documents” at the bottom.
Step 4: Paste the .asd file copy into the popping File Name box. Open the Word document file and recover it.
If you’re prompted a notification saying that “Word experienced an error…”, don’t worry, just repeat the steps mentioned and then click “Open” and select “Open and Repair” from the dropdown menu in the Unsaved Document window.
Recover unsaved Word documents in the Temporary Folder
There is an alternative way you can also carry on to find the unsaved Word document with AutoRecovery being enabled before. Now let’s get through the details of how to get the unsaved Word document back in the Temporary Folder.
Step 1: Open Microsoft Word, and click the “File” button in the upper left corner.
Step 2: Click “Manage Document” and choose “Recover Unsaved Documents” from the context menu.
Step 3: Locate your unsaved file in the home window, which should show up if you lost it recently.
Step 4: Open the recovered file and click the “Save AS” button in the top menu bar to keep it well.
If you have not enabled AutoRecover before, then the instructions below on how to enable AutoRecover are just right for your needs.
Step 1: Open the Microsoft Word app on your PC, head to “File” > “Options” > “Save”.
Step 2: Check the “Save AutoRecover information X minutes” and “Keep the last autosaved version if I close without saving” boxes. Note that you can set the time interval you want to save documents.
Step 3: Click “OK” to confirm all your actions.
You can also recover unsaved Word document on Mac with the approaches discussed above.
Recover deleted Word documents in Windows
For saved but unexpectedly deleted Word documents, you can get assistance to recover them back with the following methods.
Fix 1: Recover deleted Word documents from Previous Versions
To restore saved but deleted Word documents, you can use Windows Previous Versions to perform such a task. If you have activated it before data loss, it will include all recent versions system backup for files. Try the following steps to recover your Word files.
Step 1: Open File Explorer, and go to the original folder where you deleted or lost the Word documents.
Step 2: Right-click the folder and choose the Restore Previous Version option from the dropdown menu. This action displays multiple versions saved by your PC.
Picture: https://iboysoft.com/images/en-data-recovery/how-to-recover-deleted-excel-files/select-restore-previous-versions.jpeg
Step 3: Select the latest version of the files and then click Restore.
Fix 2: Restore deleted Word documents with File History
You can make remediation to recover your deleted word files back if you have enabled the native Windows facility – File History. Here are how to restore your deleted files with File History.
Step 1: Start the Control Pane, and click System and Security.
Step 2: Click File History in the main window.
Step 3: Head to Restore personal files.
Step 4: Locate your deleted Word file, and click the Recycle icon at the bottom of the window to restore your data.
Recover deleted Word documents from Windows Recycle Bin
If you deleted a Word document while you have not emptied the Recycle Bin yet, recovering the deleted document from Recycle Bin with simple operations is feasible.
Step 1: Launch the Recycle Bin on your PC, and then search for your deleted file with a file name. If you are unable to recall the file name, you’re recommended to look for file types, for example, DOC, DOCX, DOT, and so on.
Step 2: Locate your wanted Word document and right-click it to select “Restore”.
You don’t have to worry if you’ve already emptied the Recycle Bin on your PC. This tutorial will walk you through how to recover deleted or lost Word document files with professional recovery software. (Related: How to Recover the Favorites/Bookmarks Toolbar in Your Browser)
Recover deleted or lost Word documents with a data recovery toolset
Never worry the Word document loss caused by accidental deletion, hard drive formatting, file system corruption, or disk error because you can always recover your Word files back with the help of iBoysoft Data Recovery software for Windows.
iBoysoft Data Recovery software features advanced scanning and recovery algorithms to recover unsaved, deleted, lost Office Word documents from unmounted, unreadable, inaccessible, corrupted SD cards, USB drives, and other external hard drives. You can apply it on your Windows 11/10/8/7/Vista/XP and Windows servers.
To improve the chance of recovering your lost Word documents, it’s recommended to stop saving any files to your PC for it may overwrite your lost data. Now, let’s perform the recovery task.
Step 1: Download and install iBoysoft Data Recovery software on a Windows PC. You are suggested to place this software on an external hard drive to avoid overwriting the drive where the lost Word documents are housed.
Step 2: Launch iBoysoft Data Recovery software and then choose Data Recovery mode in the main window.
Step 3: Select the hard drive where you suffer from data loss and click Next to start scanning.
Step 4: When the scanning ends, you can right-click the scanned file and choose Preview to check your wanted document in advance.
Step 5: Select the checkbox next to the Word documents you want to restore and click Recover to bring them back. You should save the recovery results to another volume or partition because the original place may cause Word document loss again
Unsaved Word missing or lost always drives people crazy, however, this article relieves your pain by offering you clean and comprehensive ways to deal with this trouble. Regular backups of your PC and files, last but not least, can always erase your awkwardness of data loss.
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