Is There A Way Recover Unsaved Word Documents?

Is there a way recover unsaved Word documents? This problem may always appear when you close Word without clicking save. This post’ll show you some methods to recover unsaved Word files on Windows PC.

Posted by @Lucas December 17, 2024 Updated By @Lucas November 8, 2024

When you mistakenly closed your Microsoft Word application without saving the document you'd been working on for several hours, you may ask yourself “can I recover an unsaved word document”.​

Have you ever lost an unsaved Word file due to an unexpected application or system crash? If you're looking for a viable solution, this post is worthy to read.

Quick recover unsaved Word documents with professional data recovery tool

Normally, accidentally closing the document or a program/system crash could cause an unsaved Word document to vanish. Luckily, Windows 10 and Windows 11 offer several methods to recover unsaved Word documents. However, if the unsaved Word documents lose after system crash, we suggest you directly use professional data recovery tool and do not do any operate after data loss, because any operations may overwrite your lost files, which may make you lose your files forever.

To urgently recover lost unsaved Word documents, AOMEI FastRecovery can restore Word and other files in a user-friendly GUI without many complex steps. Since the target files can automatically scan and seek out the files you wish to restore, unlike the built-in tool there is no need to mutually locate and restore the files. Every Windows system is supported, thus users may quickly retrieve lost files from SSDs, HDDs, SD cards, USBs, etc.

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

Step 2. The recovery tool will then start to scan and search. It will execute the “Quickly Scan" first to quickly find your deleted data and then the “Deep Scan" to search for 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.

3 ways to recover unsaved Word documents via built-in tools

If the unsaved Word documents have just lost some context you've written, you can try some built-in tools.

1. Restore unsaved Word documents from AutoRecover

One quite unpleasant problem is the vanishing of unsaved Word documents. Chill down. Most likely, Word documents from autosave.asd files will be accessible to you. AutoSave must be turned on first in order to retrieve unsaved files. Should this function be turned on, one can find missing files not saved and go through the procedure of restoring unsaved documents.

The disappearance of unsaved Word documents is an extremely disagreeable issue. Calm down. You will probably be able to retrieve Word documents from autosave.asd documents.

To retrieve unsaved documents, it is necessary to activate AutoSave beforehand. If this feature is enabled, it is possible to locate absent files that have not been saved and undergo the process of recovering unsaved documents.

Step 1. Find the file saving path (e.g.: C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Office\UnsavedFiles).

Step 2. 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".

⭐ Tip: 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”.

2. Restore unsaved Word with Document Recovery

Most usually, if your Word crashes or closes suddenly, it will immediately restore unsaved Microsoft Office Word documents when it comes back online. Under Document Recovery, the left panel shows the unsaved docs.

 

3. Recover unsaved Word documents from Temporary Files

Step 1. Press the Win + E keys to open File Explorer.

Step 2. Type and search for .tmp. files. 

Step 3. Select the tmp file from the result list. Open and save it.  

Further reading: How to recover deleted Word files from Recycle Bin

Step 1. In the Recycle Bin. Check if the deleted Word file is still there. If you don't know the name, look for file types such as DOC, DOCX, DOT, etc.

Step 2. Select the Word file and click "Restore" to recover deleted Word documents.

Tip: If your deleted Word files are not in Recycle Bin, you can also try AOMEI FastRecovery to scan your disk and retrieve lost files.

To sum up

This guide gives you several methods to restore unsaved Word files from Windows machines. AOMEI FastRecovery let you restore unsaved, lost, and deleted Word documents without any Word backup files. Remember to make a backup copy of your Word documents should you wish to prevent future file loss. These solutions should enable you to retrieve any lost Word documents!

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