[4 Methods] How to Recover the Latest Version of A Word Document

Can I retrieve a previous version of a Word document?

When we handle some documents, MS Word may crash accidentally, then the current edited document will be lost.

It is troublesome to lose a Word document, especially unsaved one. Fortunately, in the following content, we’ll share how to recover the latest version of a Word document.

How to recover the latest version of a Word document

Are you stuck on finding out the lost latest Word files? To recover the lost Word document, you can refer to this part, 4 methods will be shared to recover unsaved Word documents.

★ Method 1. Recover the previous Word document with AutoRecover

When you miss a word document by accident, you can try AutoRecover, it’s a built-in function on Microsoft Office. It will automatically store the current documents in a certain time, so you can recover the lost word document with it.

Step 1. Find the lost file’s saving path, then copy the file name of the lost Word document you decide to recover.

Step 2. Open Microsoft Word and click “File”. Click “Manage Document” and choose the “Recover Unsaved Documents” option on the drop-down list. Then paste the target file name and click “Open”.

Step 3. In the new window, you can mutually recover the latest version of the Word document. Click “File”, “Options” and “Save” in order, then tick “Save AutoRecover information every x minutes” and “Keep the last autosaved version if I close without saving”. Finally, click “OK”.

 ★ Method 2. Recover the latest Word document via MS Word history

If you use Microsoft 365 to create Word documents, you can also find the lost documents on Microsoft OneDrive, for the files can be stored on it. Open the Version History, you can quickly access all the latest Word documents.

Note: If the Autosave function didn’t enable before, and the Word document haven’t stored on your OneDrive, or you cannot find the latest version of the Word document.

Step 1. Open the Word document and select “File” on the top-left side. Then click “Info” and “Version History” in turn.

Step 2. In the new interface, click “Version History” again, then choose the latest version and click “Open version”.

Step 3. View and check whether the selected version is that you want to recover, then click “Restore”.

★ Method 3. Recover the Word document through Properties

In Windows 10 PC, you can recover the latest version of the Word document via File Explorer. When you view the Properties of the target document, you can see the previous version of it. Let’s see how to retrieve the latest version of Word document.

Step 1. Locate the target Word document, then right-click it and choose “Properties”.

Step 2. In the new popped window, click “Previous Versions” and choose the version of a document you want to recover, then click “Restore”. If you just want to view this version, click “Open”.

★ Method 4. Recover the latest Word document with a data recovery tool

If the mentioned methods cannot help you, how to recover the latest version of a Word document? Here, we suggest you choose a third-party tool to recover the latest version of a Word document.

In a user-friendly GUI, AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional can not only recover the latest version of Word document, but also restore other files without too many steps. Different from the built-in tool, you don’t need to mutually locate and restore the target files, since it can automatically scan and seek out the files you want to restore.

Besides, there’re other advantages you may be interested in:

✎ A humane operating interface 
You can operate in a bright and clean interface
✎ User-friendly Guidance
You can learn the detailed steps provided.
✎ All-rounded data recovery service
It can recover all disappeared for various reasons, and deal with more than 200 types of files. You can also recover lost partitions when you lose them.
✎ Wide range of the compatibility
You can recover the lost data on many devices, including SD cards, USBs, HDDs, SSDs, etc.
✎ More functions
It also provides the users with other advanced functions, such as Allocate Free Space, SSD alignment, Delete Large Files, Disk Clone Wizard.

Here are the steps on how to recover an unsaved Word document.

Step 1. Install and open this powerful data manager, then click "Recover" > “Recover Data” in the main interface.

Step 2. Choose the partition that stored the lost files before, click “Start Scan”.

Step 3. When the scanning operation is finished, all lost files will be listed. Choose the previous version of the files you want to recover and click “Recover”.

Step 4. Choose a folder to store the recovered Word document, click “Select Folder”.

Step 5. When you see the small window pop out, click “OK” to finish this data recovery task.

Verdict

It can be annoying when the previous version of Word document lose due to some uncontrolled reasons. But don’t be sad, we have shared some methods on how to recover the latest version of a Word document. By comparison, AOMEI Partition Assistant can better recover lost files.

By the way, when your Word documents are lost on Windows Server, you can try the Server Version to restore them.