How to Recover Unsaved Word Document – Applies to deleted word document

Your unsaved Word document could vanish into thin air if you exit the program by accident, the program crashes, or your machine encounters an unforeseen malfunction. Recovering a Word document that you did not save requires some effort on your part.

Data, time, and energy are frequently wasted as a result of this. A few workarounds exist, nevertheless, in case you accidentally delete a Word document and can’t find the save button.

Hold on a little longer! If you’re lucky, you can get all of your work back onto your computer.

If you have ever lost a Word document because you were too busy or careless to save it, or because of an unexpected problem, this article will walk you through every single one of your options. I say we begin immediately.

Come on, we can begin.

Recovering Unsaved Word Document

Recovering a Word document that was accidentally deleted:

1. To open Microsoft Word, go to the top left and select the File tab.
2. To recover accidentally saved documents, go to the Manage Document menu and choose Recover Unsaved Documents.
3. Inside the dialog box, you should see your missing file.
4. To save the restored Word document, open it and go to the banner at the top of the page.

All versions of Word—2019, 2016, 2013, 2010, Word for Mac, and Word for Office 365—are compatible with the various sections and instructions provided in this article. Keep it in mind.

There is currently no way to restore an unsaved document in older versions of Word, including Word Online and Word 2007.

How to recover unsaved Word document: Pre-Recovery

If you accidentally delete a Word document and can’t find it, try using temporary files. You can try a variety of rehabilitation techniques, but keep in mind that no one approach will always be effective. To avoid accidentally losing your work, you can enable auto-saving in the settings of Microsoft Word.

Here are seven methods to retrieve accidentally deleted office files:

[1] Find Word files to retrieve accidentally deleted Word documents.

You can try finding the Word document in Windows’ search bar to retrieve the accidentally saved version:

1. In Windows 8.1, you can type the name of the document into the Search box; in Windows 10, choose Start, and then click Enter.
2. To open the document in Word, double-click on it if it is in the Documents list (or Files list in Windows 8.1).

Continue to the next step if the file is not found in the search results.

[2]Finding previous versions of Word in order to restore a lost Word document

The “.wbk” extension is standard for all Word backup files. There may be a copy of the file on your computer if you’ve chosen the “backup copy” option in Word.

To see if this is enabled, go to File > Options > Advanced. In the Save section, find Always create backup copy and click on it.

Here are two places you can look for the backup file if you have a Microsoft 365 subscription:

• C:\Users\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Word
• C:\Users\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Office\UnsavedFiles

Note: Change to your username in these paths.

In order to locate the backup copy of your Word document, go to Start, type.wbk into the search box, then hit Enter. You will find your file if you look for any that begin with “Backup of” and then the name of the missing file. The file can be opened with a simple double-click.

If you are still unable to locate the document’s backup file, proceed to the next step.

[3] Go to Word and click on the “Recover Unsaved Documents” button.

To prevent the irretrievable loss of your unsaved work, Microsoft has included a new option. If you follow the procedures below, you can access this right in Word.

• Launch Microsoft Word and search the window’s header for the File menu.

• After you click the Manage Document button, a drop-down menu will appear; from there, you may select Recover Unsaved Documents. A new window will open up when you click here, allowing you to see Word’s inventory of unsaved documents.

• After you see a list of all the unsaved files, click the Open button to restore the one you selected.

• You can save your document in Word by selecting File from the menu or by using the Ctrl + S keyboard shortcut when it opens.

4] Get back a Word document you forgot to save by manually searching your temporary files.

For a variety of efficiency purposes, Windows stores hundreds of temporary files on your computer. If you’d rather not utilize Word’s built-in recovery feature, you can locate an unsaved version of your Word document here and restore it by transferring and saving it by hand.

1. The following directory should be accessed via the File Explorer application: The file is located in the UnsavedFiles directory on C:\Users\User\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Office\UnsavedFiles ”. User must be substituted with the username associated with your local Windows system in order to prevent the path from becoming erroneous. To initiate the Run application, select the Windows key and the R key simultaneously. In addition, this string may be copied and pasted into the field.
2. All of the files that Word has saved for you automatically will be visible, just like in the first approach. Pick out all the files that need recovery.
3. When you right-click on a selected file, a context menu will appear; use this to copy numerous files simultaneously. Another option you might think about is using the Ctrl+C keyboard shortcut.
4. Find the folder or drive where you’d like to save the recovered files. Select “Paste” from the context menu after right-clicking inside the folder. The Ctrl+V keyboard shortcut is another option.
5. Hold tight while your files are being copied. There you have it! You have successfully recovered and saved all of your previously unsaved documents. Without worrying about losing them, you can open them and start working with them again.

5] Retrieve lost Word files from the trash can

If you want to know if your document has gone to trash and how to get it back, you may do that by following these steps.If you haven’t yet emptied the recycle bin on your desktop, you can retrieve a document that you erased by accident. Follow these steps to see if your document has gone to the trash and, if so, how to get it back.

• Double-clicking your Recycle Bin will reveal its contents if you navigate to your desktop. has any contents by double-clicking on it. You will be presented with a popup that shows everything that is currently in your bin.
• Find and pick the Word document that you unintentionally erased if the contents are visible.

Pro-tip: You may find files much more easily by using the search function in the Recycle Bin.

• Holding down the mouse button while selecting your Word document. Place the file by dragging and dropping it into your Desktop (or any other folder that is not the Recycle bin).
• Your unsaved documents have been successfully restored to a secure location. Without worrying about them being erased, you can just open them from the new location and work with them once more.

6] Use AutoSave and AutoRecover to stop losses in the future.

Word has two very helpful features that combine to make sure you never experience issues with lost or unsaved documents. Even if you encounter similar unexpected issues, this section explains how to activate these features to guarantee that you never run into a problem similar to this in the future.

PreserveAutoSave

When Office 365 users decide to store their documents in SharePoint or OneDrive, AutoSave takes care of it. . Your document is automatically saved as you work on it, so you never have to bother about constantly saving by hand. For those who use Word on a daily basis, this function is strongly recommended as it significantly reduces the likelihood of data loss.

This feature is only available to Office 365 subscribers, as was previously stated. Visit Microsoft’s official website to find out how to become a subscriber if you want to work with AutoSave enabled.

Word document deletion with AutoRecovery

If utilized properly, a function available to non-subscribers could prevent you from losing data in the future. To enable it while using a Windows operating system, follow these steps:

1. Pick the Options menu item from the left-hand pane after you go to the File tab. In the pop-up box, you’ll see all of Word’s options.
2. In the left pane, select the Save tab.
3. To specify the interval between each saving, manually enter the desired number of minutes after selecting the saving AutoRecover Information Every X Minutes checkbox. A lot of folks advise putting in between five and ten minutes.
4. Verify that you have chosen to “Keep the Last AutoRecovered Version if I Close Without Saving.” This is what will enable file recovery in the future, even in the event of an unexpected issue with Word or your computer.
5. To complete the modification, click the OK button. For the time being, AutoRecover is enabled for you!

[7] Retrieve a Mac Word document that was not saved.

Word versions for macOS have a slightly different procedure for recovering files, including unsaved Word documents.

For Mac users, the AutoRecover option is activated by default, in contrast to certain Windows versions. This results in a slightly different but more efficient approach because, unless the feature was previously manually disabled, you never have to worry about losing unsaved data.

On a Mac, to retrieve erased Word documents:

1. On your Mac, open the Finder window, then:
   • Press the enter key after typing “AutoRecovery” into the search bar. This will allow you to locate the Word AutoRecovery folder that comes preinstalled on your device.
   • 
   • As an alternative, press Shift + ⌘ + G to select Go to folder after selecting the Go option from the header. ) Copy the path below, then press Enter: AutoRecovery can be found in Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Word/Data/Library/Preferences.
2. All of the files Word has automatically saved for you will be visible to you. Choose every file that needs to be recovered.
3. Choose a file to copy by right-clicking on it. CopyThere is another shortcut on the keyboard that is ⌘ + C.
4. The files you downloaded should be in a certain location. To paste something into the folder, just right-click on an empty area and select Paste. Pressing ⌘ plus V is another shortcut on the keyboard.
5. Hold on while your files finish transferring. And viola! We have successfully recovered your unsaved papers to a safe place. You may simply open them and work with them again without having to worry about their being deleted.

Final Words

That concludes our discussion. We have highlighted seven techniques for recovering unsaved Word documents. We hope that this article has been helpful in teaching you how to access an unsaved Word document on several platforms.

If you continue to have issues with your Word documents disappearing, do not hesitate to revisit this topic.

By clicking this link, you can see our Microsoft Word cheat sheet. See our help center for a plethora of additional Microsoft Word document tips and tricks.