You are working on a Word document and all of a sudden it shuts down accidentally, due to an error or the computers restarts itself, without saving the document. This can be scary, especially if it’s an important document and if you have already written substantially. The thought of writing the entire document again can be frightening.
However, there’s nothing to panic, as fortunately, there are a couple of ways to recover your unsaved Word document. The methods we are going talk about, applies to MS Word 2007 to 2019. So, let’s see how to recover the lost documents in MS Word.
Method 1: Using Open in File Tab
Step 1: Open a blank Word file, and go to the File tab on the upper left of the document.
Step 2: In the context menu, click on Open.
Step 3: Now, on the right side of the pane, click on Recover Unsaved Documents at the bottom of the document.
Step 4: From the File Explorer, select the file you want to recover and click on Open.
Step 5: Click on the Save As button and save the document in the desired location.
So, you have now recovered the unsaved document. But, if you don’t get the above option, try the 2nd method.
Method 2: Using the Info Option in File Tab
Step 1: Follow Step 1 from Method 1 to go to the File tab.
Step 2: In the context menu, click on Info. Then on the right side, click on Manage Document and from the drop down, select Recover Unsaved Documents.
Now, follow Step 4 and Step 5 from Method 1 to recover the unsaved document ad save it to the desired location. But, if this doesn’t work, you can try the 3rd method.
Method 3: Using AppData
Step 1: Press the Windows key + R together on your keyboard to open the Run command. Now, type appdata in the search box and hit Enter. This will open the AppData folder in the File Explorer.
Step 2: In the AppData folder, copy and paste the below path and hit Enter:
C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Office\UnsavedFiles
This will take you to the unsaved files location in the AppData folder. Now, follow the Step 4 and 5 from Method 1 to recover the desired file and save it in your preferred location.
Method 4: Look in Recycle Bin
1 – Press Windows key + D to go to desktop.
2 – Locate and click on Recycle Bin.
3 – Now, Locate your Unsaved files inside it.
Method 5 – Search Document name or part of name in File explorer
1 – Open File explorer
2 – Now, Search File name or part of name whatever you can remember in file explorer