How to Recover Lost Word Document on Windows PC

Help! How to recover lost Word document

Usually, when there is not enough space on the C drive, we will clean up files to free up space, but sometimes we may accidentally delete Word documents that are not backed up. But don't worry, lost Word documents can be retrieved.

When files are deleted by mistake, there are a few ways you can recover lost files or use a professional data recovery program. But you must follow specific steps and requirements to ensure that lost Word files can be recovered safely and efficiently. This article is aiming to show you how to recover lost Word documents on PC.

How to recover lost Word document with 3 options

Generally speaking, the deleted Word document will be moved to the recycle bin. If you haven't emptied it, you can find the target document in the recycle bin, which is the easiest way.

If it doesn’t work, please refer to the following three options to recover lost Word documents, including AutoRecover, Temporary Files and File History.

▶ Option 1. Recover lost Word document with AutoRecover

AutoRecover is a built-in feature of Microsoft Office, which supports automatically saving the Word document you are editing within a custom time. If you have enabled AutoRecover, you can use it to recover unsaved Word documents.

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

Step 2. Here, 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".

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”.

▶ Option 2. Recover lost Word document from Temporary Files

Similar to AutoRecover, AutoSave is also a built-in feature of Microsoft Office. If you have turned on AutoSave in advance, you can also retrieve the lost Word document.

Step 1. Open Word and click "File" in the upper left corner.

Step 2. Click "Manage Documents" and select "Recover Unsaved Documents" from the drop-down list.

Step 3. If it is a recently lost document, it should appear in this window. Open the target Word document and click the "Save As" button in the top banner.

▶ Option 3. Recover lost Word document via File History

If your computer is running Windows 8 and above operating systems, and has enabled File History in advance, you can retrieve lost Word document through File History.

File History preserves previous versions of files and folders, one of which you may find the target document in. You can check if you have enabled it by going to Control Panel > System and Security > File History. If enabled, you can click Restore personal files to find the documents you need.

How to recover lost Word document on Windows 7/8/10/11 (better way)

If none of the above methods can help you, how to recover lost Word document? Here, we use AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional, which has the following advantages:

✦ Compatible with NTFS, FAT32, exFAT, and ReFS file systems and supports Windows 7, 8, 10, and 11.
✦ Recover deleted or lost data from HDD/SSD/USB/other storage devices.
✦ Recover multiple types of data, including Word, Excel, PPT, photos, videos, audio, emails, web pages, and compressed files.
✦ Automatically run quick scan and deep scan to find all deleted data.

Tip: This all-in-one program offers other advanced features such as recover lost partitions, reset Windows password, clone disk, allocate free space, move installed program to another drive, etc.

Step 1. Install and run AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional, click Recover> Recover Data.

Step 2. Select the source drive where the Word document was saved > Start Scanning.

Step 3. When the scan is over, all deleted files, Recycle Bin and other lost files will be listed. Please select the data you want to recover and click Recover.

Step 4. Please select a path to save recovered documents.

Step 5. The recovery progress will start and data will be saved to the path if it is successful.

Conclusion

There are 4 ways to help you fix how to recover lost Word document issued on Windows 11, 10, 8, and 7. If you want to recover files other than Word, then you can't miss AOMEI Partition Assistant. To recover data on Windows Server, please go to Server Edition.