There is an hour left before submitting or sending a document on which you have been working for more than one day, and now, instead of saving all the changes, you forget to save it, or the program closes itself. This has happened to many. This is just one of the many scenarios that happen even to very experienced PC users. Fortunately, Microsoft has a mechanism for recovering documents that were lost before they were saved.
Step 1. Open a blank word document. Go to the File menu in the top bar.
Step 2. A horizontal menu will open in front of you with all the parameters that relate to saving, printing and other actions with the document. Go to details.
Step 3. So, in the "Details" section you will see the document management area.
Click on the button as shown in the screenshot and in the pop-up menu select the option that suits you, in our case it is recovery.
Step 4. A new window will open on your screen with all the files that you did not manage or could not save in time. Select the required document and open it.
Step 5. The file you selected will open in Word. Save it.
Note! The folder with unsaved documents displays only those that were lost no later than 4 days ago. After this period, all unsaved documents are permanently deleted from your computer.
Where are the unsaved documents
The AutoSave feature was introduced in Office software releases in 2010. If you're on an older computer with older versions of the software, there is a space on your Windows hard drive that stores unsaved Office files for four days. You cannot move files from this area, but you can open and access them for later saving.
| operating system | Path (User Name - the name of your computer administrator) |
|---|---|
| Windows 7, Vista | C: \\ Users \\ User_Name \\ AppData \\ Local \\ Microsoft \\ Office \\ UnsavedFiles |
| Windows XP | C: \\ Documents_and_Settings \\ User_Name \\ Local_Settings \\ ApplicationData \\ Microsoft \\ Office \\ UnsavedFiles |
There is an easier way, type the word "Unsaved" in the start menu search bar. The system will find the appropriate folder for you. Open it and view the contents.
In fact, this is where the system directs you when you try to recover a document using Word AutoRecover. Again, you will see in the folder everything that was created no more than 4 days ago.
As you can see, documents that you did not manage to save are not deleted from your computer, they do not disappear anywhere, but are stored on your computer for some time. You can also open them using the standard Notepad program, if the Word does not cope with its task. Unfortunately, in this case, you will lose graphics and formatting, saving only the text, but in many cases this is already a big deal.
Option 2: Recover Lost Word Documents with EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard
Regardless of which version of Word you are using, it is really difficult to complete the entire recovery process with the Microsoft Office guides listed above. EaseUS allows Word users to recover deleted documents in just three steps. Other functions performed by this program include the following:
- windows recovery;
- search for USB files;
- find lost Word documents, etc.
All of this can be easily accomplished with this program. Even a beginner can handle this tool. It is applicable to Word 2013, 2001, 2007, 2003, 2002.
Note! This is paid software. However, you can download and use the trial version. You don't even need to register for trial use.
Step 1. Download, install and run the program, select the drive where the unsaved documents are supposed to be located, and click on the "Scan" button to find all Word documents.
Step 2. General scanning will start first. Upon completion, a deep scan will automatically start to help find more documents.
Step 3. Once the program scans your hard drive, go through all the recovered Word documents and select the ones you want to keep. After that, by clicking on the "Restore" button, return them back.
EaseUS document recovery software is much easier to use than any other software in this category. It is, as the name suggests, designed to make life easier for people.
For the future
Of course, prevention is always the best way to avoid losing data. It starts with careful and regular preservation. Do not be lazy and do it even when you leave the computer to, for example, make yourself tea or coffee or answer a call. This can protect you from future information loss. Although the software does save files to the AutoSave system from time to time, it cannot save absolutely everything. Most often, on computers, the default interval is 10 minutes. So there is a risk of losing the data that you entered 10 minutes before the unsuccessful closing of the document.
If the file was ready to autosave and you closed it, you will lose the last nine minutes of your work. You can change this setting so that autosave occurs more often.
Step 1. In older versions of the software, open the Help section from the File menu. In this section, select Options. In newer software, open File\u003e Options.
Step 2. Go to save settings and change them as you see fit. Remember to save your changes.
This mode remembers the latest version with autosave even if you close the entire file before saving. This feature is present in all Office Suite products from Microsoft.
Video - How to recover unsaved or damaged Microsoft Word, Excel or PowerPoint document
No one is immune from cases when, when creating a text document, power outages may suddenly occur to the computer.
Or, when "cleaning" the computer, the user accidentally deletes some important DOC file.
In this article we will tell you how to recover a Word document.
What is Microsoft Word
Read also:Keyboard shortcuts in Word: All the main shortcuts for work
Today, Microsoft Word occupies a leading position in the list of utilities for creating and editing text documents. It is part of the Microsoft Office suite of programs developed directly by Microsoft.
The main rival of Word can only be called Microsoft Excel, which is included in the same software package as Word.
There are many versions of this program. Each of them was designed for the corresponding versions of the Windows operating system: Word 97, 2000, XP, 2003, 2007, 2010, 2013.
Today the latest version of this program is the newest Microsoft Word 2016. However, the most popular versions are 2007 and 2010.
At the moment, all versions are adapted for various versions of Windows operating systems, so it is not at all necessary to change the OS to install a newer version of the program.
The utility includes great opportunities for creating and editing text documents, tables, charts and more.
Word has a huge number of tools in its "baggage" to make your document more informative (through diagrams, tables, pictures, etc.).
Thanks to the wide variety of built-in fonts, the text can be made beautiful and pleasing to the eye, and the functions of inserting graphic elements will help to design the document in a beautiful and original way.
Activating autosave (creating a backup)
Read also:How to flip text in Word: The easiest ways for Word 2003-2016
Often, especially in the latest versions of the program, there is an automatic creation of a backup copy of a text document.
It is created in case of an emergency (sudden power off of the computer, critical system error, etc.).
For a copy to be created automatically, the program must enable autosave. Below we will look at how to enable this feature on the latest versions of Word.
Word 2003
The first step in activating this function is to open the tab “ Service" , then click on the item "Options" .
A window will open in front of you in which you need to go to the tab "Preservation" , then check the box "Autosave every ..." and set the time after which the program will automatically save changes to the document. Then by pressing the button "OK" save the setting.
In this case, you can set absolutely any period of time, even one minute. This parameter does not affect the speed of the computer in any way and does not slow down the operating system.
The advantage of this setting is that changes to your document will be saved automatically and the chances that you will lose your data are extremely small.
Word 2007
To apply the autosave setting in the 2007 version of the program, you need to open the context menu by clicking on the round LMB icon in the upper left corner of the program window.
In the new window on the left, click on the item "Preservation" and on the right side of the window put a check mark next to "Autosave every ..." and select the time interval.
To save the parameter changes, press the button "OK" and the new settings will take effect immediately.
Word 2010
In Word 2010, setting the autosave settings is not much different from the previous ones.
This method works with versions 2007 and higher. The whole point is to find and restore a backup automatically created by the program itself.
Word 2007
To restore a Word document from a backup copy, you need to go through the following points:
1 Open Word 2007, then, in the upper left corner, open the context menu by clicking on the round icon.
2 In the menu, select the item "Options" and click on it with LMB
.3 In the left part of the window that opens, select the item "Preservation" .
4 On the right side, we are looking for the line "Data catalog for auto-recovery"with the path of the backup. We copy / write / remember this path.
5 Close the parameters window, and then reopen the context menu in the upper left corner.
6 Select an item "Open" .
7 In the window that opens, enter / paste the path to the folder with backups, and look for the file in the name of your document that you want to restore.
8 On the button "Open" press the triangle and select "Open and restore" , then press the Enter button.
You can also do this manipulation in version 2003. Thus, you will open the copy that was saved automatically when an emergency occurred.
Word 2010 and up
In programs from the "tenth" version and higher, there is a special tool for restoring an unsaved Word document. In order to use it, you should follow these steps:
1 In the upper left corner, open the menu "File" , in which you need to select the item "Information".
2 In block "Versions" select button Version Control then "Recover unsaved documents" .
3 In the window that opens, select the name of the document that you want to restore, and then press the button "Open" .
4 The file opens temporarily, so to save it you need to go back to the menu "File" - "Save as…" and choose the path, name and format for saving. The document has been restored.
If the backup is not saved correctly, the file may not open when you try to open it in the standard way (double-clicking the LMB).
To open it, first launch the program itself, then open the menu "File" - "Open" and select the path to the backup, then in the folder find a document with the desired name and extension .asd or .wbk.
If you did not manage to give the document a name, then the file name will consist of the first characters printed in the document.
Select the document with a single LMB click, then on the button "Open" click on the small triangle, and instead of "Open" put "Reestablish" , then press the Enter button.
1 Press "Start" - .
4 In the window that opens, open the tab "View" , after which we put a marker near the point "Show hidden files, folders and drives" ... Save changes by pressing buttons "Apply" and "OK" .
How to recover deleted Word document
Read also:How to Download Free Office for Windows? Replacing Office: TOP-10 free analogues for Windows
There can be a great many reasons for accidentally deleting a word document. If the file was very important, you can try to restore it.
First of all, you should go to "Basket" and see if it contains your document. In case the document is there, it is very easy to restore it.
To do this, click on the RMB file and select the item in the context menu "Reestablish" .
Alternatively, you can simply drag the document from the recycle bin to your desktop. Thus, the document will be restored without damaging the content.
To restore a permanently deleted Word document, you will need additional software.
The program is called Hetman Office Recovery and is intended directly for recovering deleted and damaged Microsoft Office documents.
DownloadHetman Office Recovery is provided for free. To download the program, follow the link, then click the button Free Download .
After clicking on the download button, the system will automatically prompt you to select the download path. You need to choose where to download the installation file with the extension .EXE.
When the download is complete, open the installation file. Follow the prompts of the installer for a quality installation of the program. At the end of the installation process, restart your computer system and run the program.
When you start the program, it will automatically prompt you to select the disk on which the document you need was located before deleting it.
To start recovery, double-click on the desired disk with LMB, then follow the following points:
- First, you need to determine the type of analysis you want to perform (quick scan or full analysis);
- In the search criteria, select the parameters by which the program will search for the document (file type, creation date and size);
- After entering all the data, press the button "Further" .
Now the program will be able to provide you with all the files of a given type that have ever been on the selected medium.
Using the built-in preview function, the document can be opened inside the program to view the content, after which it can be restored.
This program allows you to recover any documents created in programs of the Microsoft Office suite.
To search for the desired document, simply by entering the search parameters, you need to specify the appropriate file type.
While working with Microsoft Word documents, an unexpected problem may arise: if the document was not saved, all changes made to it are lost. Of course, any user will try to repair a Word document. How this can be done will be discussed in this article.
The user may not have time to save the changes in the document for various reasons: whether it is a blackout or a computer problem. The Microsoft Word program was created quite logically and can easily restore the lost data. The easiest way is to open the document file that you edited before you lost your changes. In the left column of Word, you will be asked to restore, with the date it was last automatically saved. As mentioned above, the program has an autosave function, which, by the way, saves all the changes made every 10 minutes. This means that it is likely that all backups should be stored somewhere. If the method indicated above did not give the desired results, we will use the search for the autosave folder: it is possible that there is a more “fresh” saved file in it. The directory can be found by clicking on "Service" in the top menu of the document and selecting "Options". In the settings menu, select the "Location" tab. In the item "Data directory for auto-recovery" the directory will be indicated in which all copies are saved. If you are using Word 2010, the path will be different: you need to open the "File" tab and select "Options" from the drop-down menu. In the left submenu, we find "Save", after which the contents of the tab will be highlighted. It will also show the column "Data catalog ...". If this method does not help, you can use the following. After opening the program, find the "File" tab and the item "Open". A window will appear asking you to open a new file. Select the document you are interested in, but do not rush to click on the "Open" button. Notice the small triangle on the edge of the button. Click on it and select the "Open and Repair" command. After clicking, you may need to determine the file encoding. If nothing is specified, then Word will open the document with standard encoding. The next method is similar to the previous one, but works more efficiently. We find the same directory "File" - "Open", select the document we need. At the moment we are not executing the open command, but we are looking for the lowest column "File type". We display the submenu and click on "Recover text from any file". Now you can open the file and see if the appropriate changes have been made. If none of the above methods helps to achieve the desired result, you can use the help of third-party programs. Today, there are countless of them, but for this operation, let's take the Recuva program. It allows you to easily recover any type of files, including Word documents. Download and run the program. In the selection menu, put the designation next to the "Documents" item, click "Next". The program will ask for the location of the file. If it is unknown, select the upper column "It is not known exactly" (I`m not sure). If you know its directory, then we indicate it in the penultimate column "In a specified location" (In a specific location).
Two sad stories are forever imprinted in my memory when I missed the "Save" button at the most crucial moment. Once they just started talking to me, and the second time I was in such a hurry that I finished work standing at the computer already dressed. Distractions and exceeding a reasonable speed at that time cost a lot of nerves.
Surely, similar office accidents happened in your life, after which you wanted to give free rein to feelings and show the stupid car who is the boss. Just like the old popular video.
But you restrained yourself, realizing that the next time, instead of a native Mac, you will receive an import-substituting Elbrus. How to protect yourself from a state of passion and not become a laughing stock of the sanctioned victim? It is enough to know that Word, contrary to your wishes, nevertheless keeps in reserve what you decided to refuse (it was deliberately or mistakenly).
Open the main text editor window and go to the first "Details" section. Click on the "Document Management" icon, where you will find the cherished function.
Click on the option "Recover unsaved documents", after which you will see the Word service folder with several files, the existence of which you have already forgotten.
I hope that you are lucky and you will return the entire document from oblivion, and at worst - most of it. But it is important to understand that luck will smile at you only if in the settings of the program itself there is a check mark "Save the last autosaved version when closing without saving". The smile width is directly related to the autosave interval.
If I am not mistaken, the rescue function is enabled by default. But the interval is not the most optimal. I recommend reducing it to 2-3 minutes.