Losing an hour of writing to a crash or a mistaken “Don’t Save” is painful – but Word quietly keeps temporary copies. Work through these options in order; the first two solve most cases.
Act quickly
Temporary recovery files are cleaned up after a few days, and re-saving over them can remove them. Try recovery before you do anything else in Word.
1. Recover Unsaved Documents
- Open Word and go to File → Info.
- Select Manage Document → Recover Unsaved Documents.
- Pick the file and choose Open, then Save As immediately.
2. The Document Recovery pane
After a crash, Word usually shows a Document Recovery pane on the left the next time it starts. Click each version to compare, then save the best one.
3. Search for AutoRecover files
Word stores AutoRecover copies with the .asd extension. In File Explorer, search your user folder for *.asd, or open the AutoRecover folder directly:
%AppData%u005cMicrosoftu005cWordTo open an .asd file: in Word choose File → Open → Browse, set the file type to All Files, and select it.
4. Backup copies (.wbk)
If Always create backup copy was enabled (File → Options → Advanced → Save), search for *.wbk files next to the original document.
5. On a Mac
In Finder choose Go → Go to Folder and open:
~/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Word/Data/Library/Preferences/AutoRecovery/6. Previous versions and OneDrive
- Files saved to OneDrive or SharePoint have Version History – right-click the file and choose Version history.
- On Windows, right-click the folder → Properties → Previous Versions if File History or restore points are enabled.
- As a last resort, a recovery tool such as Recuva may find deleted temporary files – stop using the drive until you try it.
Prevent it next time
- File → Options → Save: set AutoRecover to every 1–5 minutes
- Tick “Keep the last AutoRecovered version if I close without saving”
- Save to OneDrive with AutoSave on – every change is saved as you type
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Inder Kochar
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