One thing we can all agree on is, nobody loves losing their document, especially after they have gone very far. I can relate to losing my document on Microsoft Word on a few occasions, and I know it has never left me happy.
The latest versions of Microsoft Word for Windows and Mac both offer many juicy features, including one to help you when you accidentally lose your Word Document, keep reading to find out how to access it.
A ton of reasons must have made you lose your typing progress; it could be due to Mac crashing, freezing, a virus attack, a force restart, or you mistakenly quitted MS word without saving your progress, whatever the reason was, there’s a good chance we might be able to recover it, don’t lose hope we can still get it back.
How To Recover Unsaved Word Document On Mac?
There are a ton of ways to recover your unsaved word document on mac, you can check the AutoRecovery folder, the TMP folder, with a system backup, you can also recover your lost word document on Mac from the Trash, or you try a third-party tool.
We will treat each method in details one after the other; we believe that before you get to the final solution, you would have gotten back your document.
1. Recover unsaved document with MS Word AutoRecovery
Among the numerous excellent features, the latest MS Word has, an autosave capability is one of the hidden but useful ones. This feature by default autosaves your progress every 10 minutes, so if your computer crashes or suffers any accident that makes Word quit without saving, be rest assured that what you had typed from 10 minutes ago is saved somewhere.
Follow these steps to see how to recover it.
1. Open Finder on Mac, select Go then Go to Folder.
2. In the text field provides, type in ~/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Word/Data/Library/Preferences/AutoRecovery and click Go.
3. In the AutoRecovery folder, go through all the files that start with “AutoRecovery save of..” then select the file you intend to recover.
4. Right-click on it, select the Rename option, and then add the .doc file extension at the end of the name there and hit the Return/Enter key.
5. Double click on the file and allow the document to open in Word.
6. Click the File menu at the top left-hand side of the screen and select the Save As option.
7. In the field provided, input a new name and select a location to save it then click Save.
How to change the Autosave frequency
Saving at a 10 minutes interval might not be enough for most of us, especially those who type pretty fast. Nevertheless, Microsoft allows you to increase or decrease the save interval as you wish.
1. On your next Word document, click on the Word Menu button. Select Preferences in the drop-down menu.
2. In the Output and Sharing section click the Save option, which is represented by a disc icon.
3. In the box next to Save every X minutes enter your preferred value. This box is at the bottom of the Save window.
2. Recover unsaved document from the TMP folder
You can recover lost word documents on Mac from the Temporary folder. A copy of the document might be saved there. Finding the temporary folder is sometimes difficult, but with these steps, you should quickly get it.
1. Go to Applications then Utilities next double-click on the Terminal option. Or press command ⌘ + space to open the spotlight and search for the terminal.
2. In Terminal, type in open $TMPDIR, Terminal then launches the TMP folder, here Mac stores all temporary files.
3. Find and open a folder named TemporaryItems then locate the desired unsaved Word file, right-click on it then select Open with and click Microsoft Word from the apps presented.
4. When it opens click on File > Save As and pick a location then give it a new name.
3. Recover lost Word Document with a Mac Backup
Suppose you are in the habit of taking backups. In that case, it is possible that you can recover your lost document from one of your backups if it was taken before the deletion.
The idea here is accessing the app or storage device that should have the backup; it could be a backup on your iCloud account, your Time Machine app, an external storage device like your hard drive, or any other means of backup.
For Time Back machine
1. Use the cmd ⌘ + spacebar shortcut keys to launch Spotlight, then type in Time Machine and select it when it shows.
2. In the Time Machine, search for the Word Document and hit the Restore button.
4. Recover lost Word Document on Mac from Trash
Microsoft Word on Mac temporarily saves documents in the Trash folder. Once you are in there, you may be able to locate your lost document and restore it.
- Open Trash
- Locate and double-click on a folder named Recover files.
- Search the folder present for your lost document.
5. Using a Third-party tool
They are a ton of third-party apps that can help you recover your deleted data. These tools are often premium apps though some offer free trials. A program like Disk Drill is a prominent data recovery tool for mac. It offers many features such as allowing you to preview your recovered files.
Another data recovery tool you could check out is the EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac. It claims to have helped over a million users recover their data. It also offers similar features like Disk Drill and its steps are quite easy to follow.
Conclusion
Losing an unsaved document isn’t something MS Word users wish for; however, accidents happen from time to time. Suppose you’ve lost your Word Document without saving its progress. All hope isn’t gone as you can recover lost Word documents on your mac by either checking the AutoRecovery folder that is part of the newer versions of Word or checking the Mac TMP folder.
Also, suppose you have a backup of some sort in your system, cloud storage, or any external device. In that case, you can recover your lost document too. The Trash app is another possible place to check, and the final resolution will be to use a third-party recovery tool. Please share with us what worked for you and thank you for visiting here.
