[4 Methods] How to Recover the Latest Version of A Word Document

When you don’t know how to recover the latest version of a Word document, you can refer to this article, you can know some useful solutions to recover the previous versions of a Word document.

Tina

By Tina / Updated on July 24, 2024

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Can I retrieve a previous version of a Word document?

 

" Please help, I have been working on a document for about 12 hours, now just finished it and was about to email it. But I’d out of it on accident, and it didn’t ask me to save it. Now I can’t find it! I have searched my whole computer and it just isn’t there. Can I retrieve a previous version of a Word document? I have no idea what to do now.

- Question from www.msofficeforums.com

 

When we handle some documents, MS Word may crash accidentally, then the current edited document will be lost.

It is troublesome to lose a Word document, especially unsaved one. Fortunately, in the following content, we’ll share how to recover the latest version of a Word document.

How to recover the latest version of a Word document

Are you stuck on finding out the lost latest Word files? To recover the lost Word document, you can refer to this part, 4 methods will be shared to recover unsaved Word documents.

★ Method 1. Recover the previous Word document with AutoRecover

When you miss a word document by accident, you can try AutoRecover, it’s a built-in function on Microsoft Office. It will automatically store the current documents in a certain time, so you can recover the lost word document with it.

Step 1. Find the lost file’s saving path, then copy the file name of the lost Word document you decide to recover.

Copy File Name

Step 2. Open Microsoft Word and click “File”. Click “Manage Document” and choose the “Recover Unsaved Documents” option on the drop-down list. Then paste the target file name and click “Open”.

Paste File Name

Step 3. In the new window, you can mutually recover the latest version of the Word document. Click “File”, “Options” and “Save” in order, then tick “Save AutoRecover information every x minutes” and “Keep the last autosaved version if I close without saving”. Finally, click “OK”.

Autosave

 ★ Method 2. Recover the latest Word document via MS Word history

If you use Microsoft 365 to create Word documents, you can also find the lost documents on Microsoft OneDrive, for the files can be stored on it. Open the Version History, you can quickly access all the latest Word documents.

Note: If the Autosave function didn’t enable before, and the Word document haven’t stored on your OneDrive, or you cannot find the latest version of the Word document.

Step 1. Open the Word document and select “File” on the top-left side. Then click “Info” and “Version History” in turn.

Step 2. In the new interface, click “Version History” again, then choose the latest version and click “Open version”.

Version History

Step 3. View and check whether the selected version is that you want to recover, then click “Restore”.

Restore

★ Method 3. Recover the Word document through Properties

In Windows 10 PC, you can recover the latest version of the Word document via File Explorer. When you view the Properties of the target document, you can see the previous version of it. Let’s see how to retrieve the latest version of Word document.

Step 1. Locate the target Word document, then right-click it and choose “Properties”.

Properties

Step 2. In the new popped window, click “Previous Versions” and choose the version of a document you want to recover, then click “Restore”. If you just want to view this version, click “Open”.

Restore

★ Method 4. Recover the latest Word document with a data recovery tool

If the mentioned methods cannot help you, how to recover the latest version of a Word document? Here, we suggest you choose a third-party tool to recover the latest version of a Word document.

In a user-friendly GUI, AOMEI FastRecovery can not only recover the latest version of Word document, but also restore other files without too many steps. Different from the built-in tool, you don’t need to mutually locate and restore the target files, since it can automatically scan and seek out the files you want to restore.

Besides, there’re other advantages you may be interested in:

✎ A humane operating interface 
You can operate in a bright and clean interface
✎ User-friendly Guidance
You can learn the detailed steps provided.
✎ All-rounded data recovery service
It can recover all disappeared for various reasons, and deal with more than 200 types of files. You can also recover lost partitions when you lose them.
✎ Wide range of the compatibility
You can recover the lost data on many devices, including SD cards, USBs, HDDs, SSDs, etc on all Windows 11/10/8/7, and Windows Server systems.

Here are the steps on how to recover an unsaved Word document.

Free DownloadWindows PCs and Servers
Secure Download

Step 1. Install and launch AOMEI FastRecovery. Choose the exact partition or disk where your data lost and click Scan.

Select drive

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.

Scan

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".

Choose files

Step 4. Then, select a folder path to save your recovered files.

Save the recovered data

Step 5. Wait patiently for this process of recovering ends.

Verdict

It can be annoying when the previous version of Word document lose due to some uncontrolled reasons. But don’t be sad, we have shared some methods on how to recover the latest version of a Word document. By comparison, AOMEI FastRecovery can better recover lost files.

Tina
Tina · Staff Editor
Tina is an English editor of AOMEI Technology. She has a positive attitude and full of energy. On her work, she always keeps thinking to figure out the solutions for users' problems, and writes the answers so that can help someone. In her daily life, she likes to sing, watch TV and sleep. She always being grateful and happy to all the things happened and all the people encountered.