You’re quietly writing on your computer when Word crashes. And that’s when the panic sets in! You’re overwhelmed by that feeling of dread! How do you recover those documents? Whether you’re a student, an employee or a business owner, you’ve almost certainly faced this experience at least once. Don’t panic if it happens to you! Whatever the cause (a crash, an accidental deletion, a missing file), you can restore your unsaved Word files.
Want to recover your files? We reveal the tips!
How do you recover your unsaved Word files?
Although your word processing software automatically saves your documents, it’s always recommended to save your documents manually to protect your work! Indeed, you’re never immune to a crash.
Aware that some people don’t perform manual saves, Microsoft has put in place a simple solution to let you restore your unsaved Word documents.
To do this, nothing could be simpler! Just open Word and click on the File tab in the top left. Once you’ve done that, go to Manage Document and click on Recover Unsaved Documents in the drop-down menu.
If it’s a relatively recent loss, you’ll find your document there. Open your Word document and click the Save As button in the menu at the top.
Quick tip
If you’d like your software to automatically save your documents more frequently, simply do the following:
Click on “File”, then “Options” and finally “Save”, and just change the number of minutes. This will give you more frequent automatic backups.
How do you restore deleted Word documents?
Knowing how to recover a deleted Word document is a valuable skill. Although the task is fairly simple, many people don’t know how to go about it. Deleted Word documents? Corrupted files? We’ll explain how to recover Word documents.
- Go to your desktop. Your PC’s desktop, not your workspace! And open your Recycle Bin.
- Search for your document by its name, file type and deletion date.
- Select the files you want and note their location. Indeed, every time your deleted Word documents are restored, you’ll find them at this location.
- Restore your document and locate it. To do this, click Recover.
One last tip
When you have a deleted Word document, you should know that your file still exists. Indeed, at first, you only delete the marker that indicates where the document was stored on your disk. This gives you some leeway to restore your deleted Word documents.
How do you recover your Word documents when the software has crashed?
You’re writing an important document… You’re almost done and… suddenly your system stops responding or the software starts crashing. No need to pound the keyboard or damage your mouse! Indeed, your lost documents can be restored. However, you need to act fairly quickly, otherwise other files could risk overwriting them on your disk.
Once your computer is working again, open your word processing software. Generally, the word processing software automatically recovers unsaved Word documents.
If your unsaved Word document doesn’t appear, you can recover the file another way. To do this, click on “File”, then “Options” and finally “Save”.
Next, you need to copy the file path of the AutoRecover folder to paste it into File Explorer.
Once you’ve done this, simply open the AutoRecover file with the name of your unsaved Word document and copy the .asd file.
You’ll then be able to recover the file.
A small recommendation
If you find that your word processing software crashes too often, this may be due to a corrupted theme or add-in. This crash is fairly common with the software. Note that it’s possible to run Word without these features.
How can you recover documents using data recovery tools?
Have you tried each of the methods mentioned above and none of them let you recover your unsaved Word file? Is finding the file impossible? Know that backup software exists, also known as data recovery software.
Although the safest solution is to run regular backups, it can happen that you’ve forgotten to do so. In that case, you have no backup to restore your deleted Word file from.
In that case, you need a recovery tool that will [automatically recover] your lost documents. These data recovery tools scan the contents of your system to locate your lost files. They assess whether they can recover the file so it can be restored in just a few clicks.
That said, it’s best to call on a professional for this type of delicate operation, which is difficult to master. So don’t hesitate to contact us.