What should I do when an important Word document is lost? Don’t worry, this post will show you how to recover Word document easily and safely.
Hi – I’ve met a problem and need your help. Yesterday I wrote a Word document and saved it to my desktop, but when I turned on my Windows 10 today, it was missed! I don’t know if it was accidentally deleted. How to recover it? That’s important to me!”
-Question from Microsoft Community
Usually, when there is not enough space on the C drive, we will clean up files to free up space, but sometimes we may accidentally delete Word documents that are not backed up. But don't worry, lost Word documents can be retrieved.
When files are deleted by mistake, there are a few ways you can recover lost files or use a professional data recovery program. But you must follow specific steps and requirements to ensure that lost Word files can be recovered safely and efficiently. This article is aiming to show you how to recover lost Word documents on PC.
Generally speaking, the deleted Word document will be moved to the recycle bin. If you haven't emptied it, you can find the target document in the recycle bin, which is the easiest way.
If it doesn’t work, please refer to the following three options to recover lost Word documents, including AutoRecover, Temporary Files and File History.
AutoRecover is a built-in feature of Microsoft Office, which supports automatically saving the Word document you are editing within a custom time. If you have enabled AutoRecover, you can use it to recover unsaved Word documents.
Step 1. Find the file saving path (e.g.: C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Office\UnsavedFiles).
Step 2. Here, copy the file name of the Word document you want to recover.
Step 3. Open your Microsoft Word, click "File". Then, click "Manage Document" and select "Recover Unsaved Documents" from the drop-down list. Please paste the copied file into the file name column and click "Open".
Manual active the AutoRecover: Click “File” > “Options” > “Save”. Then tick “Save AutoRecover information every x minutes” > “Keep the last autosaved version if I close without saving” > “OK”.
Similar to AutoRecover, AutoSave is also a built-in feature of Microsoft Office. If you have turned on AutoSave in advance, you can also retrieve the lost Word document.
Step 1. Open Word and click "File" in the upper left corner.
Step 2. Click "Manage Documents" and select "Recover Unsaved Documents" from the drop-down list.
Step 3. If it is a recently lost document, it should appear in this window. Open the target Word document and click the "Save As" button in the top banner.
If your computer is running Windows 8 and above operating systems, and has enabled File History in advance, you can retrieve lost Word document through File History.
File History preserves previous versions of files and folders, one of which you may find the target document in. You can check if you have enabled it by going to Control Panel > System and Security > File History. If enabled, you can click Restore personal files to find the documents you need.
If none of the above methods can help you, how to recover lost Word document? Here, we use AOMEI FastRecovery, which has the following advantages:
✦ Compatible with NTFS, FAT32, exFAT, and ReFS file systems and supports Windows 7, 8, 10, and 11. ✦ Recover deleted or lost data from HDD/SSD/USB/other storage devices. ✦ Recover multiple types of data, including Word, Excel, PPT, photos, videos, audio, emails, web pages, and compressed files. ✦ Automatically run quick scan and deep scan to find all deleted data.
Step 1. Install and launch AOMEI FastRecovery. Choose the exact partition or disk where your data lost and click Scan.
Step 2. Then, the recovery tool start to scan and search. lt will execute the “Quickly Scan" first for finding your deleted data fast, and then execute the “Deep Scan" for searching other lost data.
Step 3. Once the scan is completed, all deleted files, recycle bins and other missing files will be displayed. Please select the file you would like to recover and then click "Recover".
Step 4. Then, select a folder path to save your recovered files.
Step 5. Wait patiently for this process of recovering ends.
There are 4 ways to help you fix how to recover lost Word document issued on Windows 11, 10, 8, and 7. If you want to recover files other than Word, then you can't miss AOMEI FastRecovery.