How to recover a lost word file. Repair a damaged Word file

There is an hour left before submitting or sending a document on which you have been working for more than one day, and now, instead of saving all the changes, you forget to save it, or the program closes itself. This has happened to many. This is just one of the many scenarios that happen even to very experienced PC users. Fortunately, Microsoft has a mechanism for recovering documents that were lost before they were saved.

Step 1. Open a blank word document. Go to the File menu on the top bar.

Step 2. A horizontal menu will open in front of you with all the parameters that relate to saving, printing, and other actions with the document. Go to details.

Step 3. So, in the "Details" section, you will see the document management area.

Click on the button as shown in the screenshot and in the pop-up menu select the option that suits you, in our case it is recovery.

Step 4. A new window will open on your screen with all the files that you did not manage or could not save in time. Select the required document and open it.

Step 5. The file you selected will open in Word. Save it.

Note! The folder with unsaved documents displays only those that were lost no later than 4 days ago. After this period, all unsaved documents are permanently deleted from your computer.

Where are the unsaved documents

The AutoSave feature was introduced in Office software releases in 2010. If you're on an older computer with older versions of the software, there is a space on your Windows hard drive that stores unsaved Office files for four days. You cannot move files from this area, but you can open and access them for later saving.

Operating system	Path (User Name - the name of the administrator of your computer)
Windows 7, Vista	C: \ Users \ User_Name \ AppData \ Local \ Microsoft \ Office \ UnsavedFiles
Windows XP	C: \ Documents_and_Settings \ User_Name \ Local_Settings \ ApplicationData \ Microsoft \ Office \ UnsavedFiles

There is an easier way, type the word "Unsaved" in the search bar of the "Start" menu. The system will find the appropriate folder for you. Open it and view the contents.

In fact, this is where the system directs you when you try to recover a document using Word AutoRecover. Again, you will see in the folder everything that was created no more than 4 days ago.

As you can see, documents that you did not manage to save are not deleted from your computer, they do not disappear anywhere, but are stored on your computer for some time. You can also open them using the standard Notepad program, if the Word does not cope with its task. Unfortunately, in this case, you will lose graphics and formatting, saving only the text, but in many cases this is already a big deal.

Option 2: Recover Lost Word Documents with EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard

Regardless of which version of Word you are using, it is really difficult to complete the entire recovery process with the Microsoft Office guides listed above. EaseUS enables Word users to recover deleted documents in just three steps. Other functions performed by this program include the following:

Windows recovery;
search for USB files;
search for lost Word documents, etc.

All of this can be easily accomplished with this program. Even a beginner can handle this tool. It is applicable to Word 2013, 2001, 2007, 2003, 2002.

Note! This is paid software. However, you can download and use the trial version. You don't even need to register for trial use.

Step 1. Download, install and run the program, select the drive where the unsaved documents are supposed to be located, and click on the "Scan" button to find all Word documents.

Step 2. General scanning will start first. When it finishes, a deep scan will automatically start to help you find more documents.

Step 3. Once the program has scanned your hard drive, go through all the recovered Word documents and select the ones you want to keep. After that, by clicking on the "Restore" button, return them back.

EaseUS document recovery software is much easier to use than any other software in this category. It is, as the name suggests, designed to make life easier for people.

For the future

Of course, prevention is always the best way to avoid losing data. It starts with careful and regular preservation. Do not be lazy and do it even when you leave the computer to, for example, make yourself tea or coffee or answer a call. This can protect you from future information loss. Although the software does save files to the AutoSave system from time to time, it cannot save absolutely everything. Most often, computers have a default interval of 10 minutes. So there is a risk of losing the data that you entered 10 minutes before the unsuccessful closing of the document.

If the file was ready to autosave and you closed it, you will lose the last nine minutes of your work. You can change this setting so that autosave occurs more often.

Step 1. In older versions of the software, open the Help section from the File menu. In this section, select Options. In newer software, open File> Options.

Step 2. Go to the save settings and change them as you see fit. Remember to save your changes.

This mode remembers the latest version with autosave even if you close the entire file before saving. This feature is present in all Office suite products from Microsoft.

Video - How to Recover Unsaved or Damaged Microsoft Word, Excel or PowerPoint Document

Are you familiar with the situation when, after spending the whole day at work in Word, upon its completion you are going to close the file with a clear conscience, but the cursor treacherously clicks on the option “do not save”, and all your efforts are in vain? Or while you are writing an essay and are unaware of anything, the light suddenly turns off, and with it all unsaved data disappear? If you are reading this now, then most likely something of the same kind happened to you. But don't despair! The process of finding an unsaved document and recovering it is pretty quick and easy, so you won't waste a lot of time on it.

Let's consider ways to recover Word documents for three versions: 2010, 2007 and 2003. They differ a little, but first things first.

Word 2010 version

Fortunately, in this version, the developers took care of such an issue? and you can return the lost document without any problems. Moreover, if an abnormal shutdown occurs, that is, the computer shuts down without your participation, then the program itself will restore the file that you did not have time to save.

And if no unexpected shutdowns occurred and you just missed by clicking on the "save" button, then you need to search for backup copies of documents manually. It's not that hard, below is a detailed instruction.

Open Word, click on "File" in the upper left corner of the screen. After that, go to "Information"

2. Find "Versions", click and select the function "Recover unsaved documents".

3. Before us opens a folder where the backup copies of documents are located. We are looking for the file we need among them and open it.

4. We save the document and continue working on it as long as necessary!

That's all, we found a backup copy of the document and restored everything manually, spending a maximum of 5 minutes on it. Perhaps you are wondering why the unsaved file ended up in some folder? It's simple, in Word 2010, by default, the document autosave function works every 10 minutes. If desired, this time can be changed, for example, to autosave every 2 minutes. It's pretty easy to do, let's figure it out together.

Go to "File" again, only this time select "Help" from the menu, and then "Options".
On the right in the options menu, we find "Saving" and set up a convenient interval for us, with which the autosave will be performed. There you can also change the path of the saved files to make it easier to search for them.

That's all, now you know how to recover a Word 2010 document. Now let's understand how to recover an unsaved Word 2007 document. Everything is a little different there, but also quite simple and straightforward.

Word 2007 version

In general, the only difference between earlier versions of word (2007, 2003) is that there is no "Information" section in the menu, from where we "pulled out" the non-saved documents. However, as mentioned earlier, recovering files is still not difficult for you and me.

That's all, the restoration of the not preserved document is done! The same scheme works with the version Word 2003 .

Backup Converter

But if you cannot open the file using the methods given above, then the file is damaged or deleted and here you need to use the backup converter. It is installed with Office, but sometimes it needs to be manually activated.

Congratulations, you now have this option enabled. If it was already turned on, then you do not need to do anything from the above, we proceed immediately to use it. So, how to recover deleted word document:

Run word, "File" - "Open".
Enter the path to the backup and click on it.
In the field above the "Cancel" button, set the "Text recovery" parameter.
Click on the arrow next to "Open" and select "Restore".

Done, we have "returned" the deleted / damaged file using the converter.

What to do if there is no backup

It so happens that it disappears after the document has been closed in Word. But this situation is not hopeless either, there are several ways to get your file back safe and sound.

The first way

We open "My Computer".
Enter "* .asd" into the search bar. It is the extension of all unsaved word files, and the asterisk is read like any character.
After completing the search, in the list provided, find a backup of your data.

And if the system doesn't find anything, try using “.wdk” instead of “* .asd”. If this option did not work for you, try the next method.

Second way

If the first option did not help you, then there is no autosaved document. However, your data may still be in temporary files. So what to do:

Open "My Computer" again
Now we drive "* .tmp" into the search bar.
We are looking for the file you need in the list.

Third way

Sometimes temporary data is saved with a ~, a tilde at the beginning.

Go to the search again, specify the date of the last change in the file in the parameters.
We type "~ *. *" And the system searches for all documents that begin with a tilde.
Find the document you need from the list that appears.

These are all the ways with which it is possible to recover lost and unsaved files. But if none of them helped you, then try using special programs.

When you work with large or important documents, you need to make sure that autosave is set up, but it is better to save yourself to be absolutely sure that your documents are safe.

No one is immune from cases when, when creating a text document, power outages may suddenly occur to the computer.
Or, when "cleaning" the computer, the user accidentally deletes some important DOC file.
In this article we will tell you how to recover a Word document.

What is Microsoft Word

Read also:Keyboard shortcuts in Word: All the main shortcuts for work

Today, Microsoft Word occupies a leading position in the list of utilities for creating and editing text documents. It is part of the Microsoft Office software package developed directly by Microsoft.

The main rival of the Word can only be called, which is included in the same software package as the Word.

There are many versions of this program. Each of them was intended for: Word 97, 2000, XP, 2003, 2007, 2010, 2013.

Today the latest version of this program is the newest Microsoft Word 2016. However, the most popular versions are 2007 and 2010.

At the moment, all versions are adapted for different versions of operating systems, so it is not at all necessary to change the OS to install a newer version of the program.

The utility includes great opportunities for creating and editing text documents, tables, charts and more.

In the "baggage" of Word has a huge number of tools to make your document more informative (through diagrams, tables, pictures, etc.).

Thanks to the great variety of built-in ones, the text can be made beautiful and pleasing to the eye, and the functions of inserting graphic elements will help to design the document in a beautiful and original way.

Activating autosave (creating a backup)

Read also:How to flip text in Word: The easiest ways for Word 2003-2016

Often, especially in the latest versions of the program, there is an automatic creation of a backup copy of a text document.

It is created in case of an emergency (sudden power off of the computer, critical system error, etc.).

To create a copy automatically, the program must enable autosave. Below we will look at how to enable this feature on the latest versions.

Word 2003

The first step in activating this function is to open the tab “ Service" , then click on the item "Options" .

A window will open in front of you in which you need to go to the tab "Preservation" , then check the box "Autosave every ..." and set the time after which the changes in the document will be automatically saved. Then by pressing the button "OK" save the setting.

In this case, you can set absolutely any period of time, even one minute. This parameter does not affect the speed of the computer in any way and does not slow down the operating system.

The advantage of this setting is that changes to your document will be saved automatically and the chances that you will lose your data are extremely small.

Word 2007

To apply the autosave setting in the 2007 version of the program, you need to open the context menu by clicking on the round LMB icon in the upper left corner of the program window.

In the new window on the left, click on the item "Preservation" and on the right side of the window, put a check mark next to "Autosave every ..." and select the time interval.

To save the parameter changes, press the button "OK" and the new settings will take effect immediately.

Word 2010

In Word 2010, setting the autosave settings is not much different from the previous ones.

This method works with versions 2007 and higher. The whole point is to find and restore a backup automatically created by the program itself.

Word 2007

To restore a Word document from a backup copy, you need to go through the following points:

1 Open Word 2007, then, in the upper left corner, open the context menu by clicking on the round icon.

2 In the menu, select the item "Options" and click on it with LMB

3 In the left part of the window that opens, select the item "Preservation" .

4 On the right side, we are looking for the line "Data catalog for auto-recovery" with the path of the backup. We copy / write / remember this path.

5 Close the parameters window, and then reopen the context menu in the upper left corner.

6 Select an item "Open" .

7 In the window that opens, enter / paste the path to the folder with backups, and look for the file in the name of your document that you want to restore.

8 On the button "Open" press the triangle and select "Open and restore" , then press the Enter button.

You can also do this manipulation in version 2003. Thus, you will open a copy that was saved automatically when an emergency occurred.

Word 2010 and up

In programs from the "tenth" version and higher, there is a special tool for restoring an unsaved Word document. In order to use it, you should follow these steps:

1 In the upper left corner, open the menu "File" , in which you need to select the item "Information".

2 In block "Versions" select button Version Control , then "Recover unsaved documents" .

3 In the window that opens, select the name of the document that you want to restore, and then press the button "Open" .

4 The file opens temporarily, so to save it, you need to go to the menu again "File" - "Save as…" and choose path, name and save. The document has been restored.

If the backup is not saved correctly, the file may not open when you try to open it in the standard way (double-clicking the LMB).

To open it, first launch the program itself, then open the menu "File" - "Open" and select the path to the backup, then in the folder find a document with the desired name and extension .asd or .wbk.

If you did not manage to give the document a name, then the file name will consist of the first characters printed in the document.

Select the document with a single LMB click, then on the button "Open" click on the small triangle, and instead of "Open" put "Restore" , then press the Enter button.

1 Press "Start" - .

4 In the window that opens, open the tab "View" , after which we put a marker near the point Show hidden files, folders and drives ... Save changes by pressing buttons Apply and "OK" .

Alternatively, you can simply drag the document from the recycle bin to your desktop. Thus, the document will be restored without damaging the content.

To recover a permanently deleted Word document, you will need additional software.

The program is called Hetman Office Recovery and it is designed directly for recovering deleted and damaged Microsoft Office documents.

Download

Hetman Office Recovery is provided for free. To download the program, follow the link, then click the button "Free Download" .

After clicking on the button, the system will automatically prompt you to select the download path. You need to choose where to download the installation file with the extension .EXE.

When the download is complete, open the installation file. Follow the prompts of the installer for a quality installation of the program. At the end of the installation process, restart the computer system and run the program.

When you start the program, it will automatically prompt you to select the disk on which the document you need was located before deleting it.

To start recovery, double-click on the desired disk with LMB, then follow the following steps:

First, you need to determine the type of analysis you want to perform (quick scan or full analysis);
In the search criteria, select the parameters by which the program will search for the document (file type, creation date and size);
After entering all the data, press the button "Further" .

Now the program will be able to provide you with all the files of the specified type that have ever been on the selected medium.

Using the built-in preview function, the document can be opened inside the program to view the content, and then it can be restored.

This program allows you to recover any documents created in the programs of the Microsoft Office suite.

To search for the desired document, simply by entering the search parameters, you need to specify the appropriate file type.

Have you ever faced a situation when a .doc or .docx file could not be opened due to an error? Or completely lose a document on which a lot of hard and painstaking work has been done? Probably, most PC users have faced such a situation, and if not, then an article on this topic will still be interesting for them, since you need to be ready for everything.

So, let's look at several ways to recover a lost or damaged Microsoft Word file.

How to recover text from a damaged Word document

In case of damage to the document, the user may encounter the following error:

If you have checked and made sure you have permission to access the document and the disk, and you are sure that there is enough space and memory on the disk, then the next step is to use the built-in Word recovery function to recover the text of the document.

For this:

Open Word and select the File / Open / Browse tab

Find the file you want to open and select Recover Text from Any File from the pop-up menu. Click Open.

Sometimes, despite the performed recovery process, the file may remain damaged, and even if the file is successfully restored and opened. The formatting will be lost.

Another way to recover

If the above method does not work, Microsoft has provided a different way to recover the Word file. To do this, go to the File / Open tab.

In the window that opens, select your document.

Click the Open button and select the "Open and Restore" option.

If you see an inscription when you open a document, you should install the latest version of the program.

Restore a backup of your Word document

If you cannot even find the file, you can try to find a backup copy of the file created by Microsoft Word. This can be done as follows.

Select File / Open / Browse.

Go to the folder where the lost file was located. In the file type selection window, select "All files (*. *)". Usually the backup file is named "Backup ..." + file name. Select and open such a file.

If this method fails to find a backup copy of the file, then enter * .wbk in the Windows search box (the format of the backup file is Word Backup files). But in this case, the names of the backup files will not necessarily coincide with the name of the lost file. Try to open * .wbk files one by one until you find the one you need.

Find and restore an autosaved copy of the file

If backing up Microsoft Word document files is not configured on your computer, try recovering the document from Autosave files.

Autosave files can be checked in the following folder:

C: \ Users \ Name User \ AppData \ Roaming \ Microsoft \ Word

The name of the autocopy file will start from "Autocopy ..." and have the * .asd format. Just click on the autocopy file and it will open as a Microsoft Word document.

Programs for recovering Microsoft Office documents

If none of the proposed functions brought the desired result, then you can try to recover a lost file of any of the programs of the Microsoft Office package using one of the many programs for recovering deleted documents.

Fortunately, the choice is huge today. The only advice is to choose a simpler program that specializes in recovering files of the Microsoft Office package format. Since different algorithms are often used to recover image files and documents, and, accordingly, the quality of recovery can vary significantly.

As an example, we can consider Hetman Office Recovery... Already from the name you can understand that the program specializes in recovering files in the Microsoft Office format. To restore your Word file, you just need to download and run the program, scan with it the disk on which the document was lost.

As a result of scanning, the program will display the found documents with their original names. You can view their contents in the preview window. To restore the desired file, just select it with a tick and click the "Next" button.

Have a great day!

Read how to recover a “.doc” or “.docx” document in case it cannot be opened, deleted or was closed without saving. Let's consider both the built-in Word tools and third-party data recovery programs. Have you encountered an error opening Word DOC or DOCX files? Or even with the complete loss of an entire document after the enormous work done on its creation?

We've all experienced this in the past, if you haven't learned this hard lesson yet, back up your computer files regularly. There are many free or inexpensive solutions that will protect you from similar problems in the future. Do yourself a favor and set up backups right after restoring your documents.

Content:

At the moment, we have several ways to get a lost or damaged file back.

Recover text from damaged Word document

If your document is damaged, you may receive an error message:

"Word failed when trying to open the file.
Try the following steps.
* Check the document and disk access permissions.
* Check if there is enough memory and disk space.
* Open the file with a backup converter. "

If you have access rights to the file, there is enough free RAM and the computer processor is not fully loaded, you can use the built-in Word recovery function and get some of the text of the document back.

Open up Word then click File – Open.

Click on Overview to continue.

Browse to the damaged file and highlight it. In the drop down list of file types, select "Recover text from any file".

Click on Open and if you're lucky, Word will restore your text.

In this case, nothing can be guaranteed. In some cases, the file can be damaged beyond recovery, or even if the text is restored, you will lose formatting.

Forced repair of a damaged file with Microsoft Word

If the previous method doesn't work, Word might try to force the file fix. Click on the menu File then press Open.

In the dialog box File opening highlight your damaged file.

Click on the arrow on the button Open then specify Open and fix.

Recovering a Lost Word Document

If you can't even find the file, maybe the backup copies of the files that Word saves will help you. Here we will demonstrate how to find backup files in Microsoft Word 2016. Instructions for earlier versions of Word can be found in the Microsoft documentation.

After launch Word 2016 click File – Open.

Click on Overview to continue.

Then go to the folder where you saved the missing file the last time. In the drop-down list of file types, specify All files... Backup names usually start with "Backup copy" followed by the name of the lost file. Select the backup file and click Open.

If you can't find a backup copy of the file using the described method, search for the extension WBK (Word Backup files).

The filename may not be familiar to you, as it is automatically generated by Word. Therefore, open all found wbk files one by one until you find the desired document. Save the document after detection in DOCX format, as the temporary file may be deleted by the system.

Find and recover temporary autosave files

If you did not find a backup in the document folder, you can check the autosave files that are created every 10 minutes while working with any Word document. They can be located in different locations, depending on the version of the operating system and Microsoft Office.

Before Windows Vista:
"C: \ Documents and Settings \ \ Application Data \ Microsoft \ Word"
"C: \ Documents and Settings \ \ Local Settings \ Temp"
On Windows 7 and Vista, the files are located:
"C: \ Users \ \ AppData \ Local \ Microsoft \ Word"
"C: \ Users \ \ AppData \ Local \ Temp"
On Windows 10, I found the files here:
"C: \ Users \ \ AppData \ Roaming \ Microsoft \ Word"

In the examples below, the characters “xxxx” replace numbers:

The Word document will look like this:
The temporary document will look like this: ~ wrfxxxx.tmp
The automatic recovery file will look like wraxxxx.tmp or will be named "Auto save" with ASD extension.
The backup copy of the saved file has the extension WBK.

If you can't find the folders where temporary files, autosave files, or the document itself are stored, use Windows search. You can also use our programs to find and recover documents deleted by mistake after reinstalling Windows, formatting disks. If you cannot restore a file to its location, analyze the entire disk and check the folders in which temporary backup files and autosave files are stored.