Cannot find your Word document on a Mac? You might have accidentally deleted it or forgotten to save it. This article helps you recover unsaved Word documents on a Mac and save files you might have deleted or lost without hassle.
We all know that MS Word is the most commonly used application to create documents like assignments, letters, brochures, learning activities, etc. In simple, Word documents have become part of our work life.
A few reasons why Word documents was lost from your Mac:
- Accidental deletion of files from your hard disk.
- MS Word application crashes and leads to Word document damage
- Damage to your hard disk or storage device where Word documents have been saved
- Infection with a virus or malware that causes damage to the files and causes data loss.
Can I retrieve a Word document that wasn’t saved?
Yes, you can retrieve a Word document that wasn’t saved in most cases. However, there are a few cases, such as file corruption, application damage, and others, that completely damage your documents. In such cases, you need to repair Word documents initially and try recovering the files.
Before it’s too late to recover the document, let’s examine the methods for recovering Word documents on Mac.
How to Recover Unsaved, Deleted, Lost Word Document in Mac?
Below- mentioned are the 5 different ways to recover lost, deleted, or unsaved Word documents from Mac:
- How to Recover Unsaved Word Documents on Mac with a Time Machine
- Recover Unsaved Word Docs on a Mac with AutoRecovery
- Restore Deleted Word Files from a Backup or the Trash
- Retrieve document from Temporary folder
- Recover Word Documents from Mac Using SFWare Data Recovery Software
Let’s get into each method to recover lost, unsaved, deleted word files from the Mac drive:
Method 1: Recover Word Documents on Mac Usinng Time Machine
To access your unsaved Word file in Time Machine, you will need to follow the steps given below:
Note: Time Machine saves the backup only if you have enabled it. If you have not enabled the Time Machine Backup, you can skip the process and move on to the next method.
- Use Spotlight to find the Time Machine. To use Spotlight, press cmd + spacebar together. Start typing Time Machine. Once it appears, launch the application.
- Locate the lost Word file from the timeline and restore it.
Method 2: Recover Unsaved Word Documents on a Mac with AutoRecovery
AutoRecover is a built-in feature of the Microsoft Office application that helps you recover files lost due to a system crash or application crash. It does this by periodically saving a copy of the file in the background. By default every 10 minutes a backup copy is saved by AutoRecover feature.
Note: This method works only when the disappeared files are being worked on.
Follow the steps given below to recover Word documents using AutoRecovery.
Step 1. Open a Finder window on your Mac.
Step 2. Select the entire computer as the location.
Step 3: Enter AutoRecovery in the Search field.
You will see the list of files that begins with “AutoRecovery save of” followed by the name of the Word document you are trying to recover.
Step 4: Double-click on the file to be recovered. This will open the file in Microsoft Word.
Step 5: Save the document with the new name and click the Save button.
Method 3: Recover the Word document from the Temporary folder
Recovering lost Word files from the temp folder is tricky and tedious as the files stored in this folder are saved with a different name. Follow the steps below to recover files from temp files.
Step 1: Go to Applications > Utilities and double-click Terminal.
Step 2: In Terminal, type open $TMPDIR to be directed to the TMP folder that temporarily stores the file.
Step 3: In the TMP folder, locate and open the TemporaryItems folder. Right-click the desired unsaved Word files and open them with… Microsoft Word.
Step 4: Save the Word file by clicking on File > Save As and save it to another location.
Method 4: Recover Deleted Word Files from a Backup or the Trash
It can be found in the Trash when accidentally deleting a Word file. All you have to do is Go to Trash, locate the files, and restore the required file from the trash.
What if your trash is empty? Or are files permanently deleted from the drive? You can still try to recover data from the Time Machine backup, the prominent built-in tool every macOS user has on their computer.
If you have failed to recover Word documents using the above-mentioned methods and are wondering how to recover unsaved or permanently deleted Word files, do not worry! You can easily recover deleted or lost Word files using a data recovery tool for Mac.
Method 5: Recover Lost Deleted Word Files from Mac Using SFWare Data Recovery Software
SFWare data recovery tool for Mac is one of the most trusted software for recovering data from Mac computers. You can easily retrieve it without hassle, whether it was deleted, lost, or formatted from the drive. The software’s quick scan feature can easily scan the sector by sector to locate the lost files on the disk.
Download SFWare Deleted File Recovery Software on your Mac machine and launch the application.
- Choose the Recover Files option from the main screen. Then select the Lost File Recovery or Deleted File Recovery option from the second screen.
- Select the appropriate disk from which you want to recover hidden files from Mac Volume and click on the “Next” option.
- You can either use Data view or File type view to view the files and save them on your computer.
- The software scans the entire selected Volume and recovers Word documents. Once the recovery process is complete. You can Preview the recovered files and Save them in any desired location.
Conclusion
It is always rewarding to keep a backup regularly to prevent data loss situations in the future. The article discusses 4 different manual methods to recover unsaved, deleted, or lost files from Mac computers, with which you should be able to recover Word documents.
If you have successfully recovered the Word documents using the above-discussed methods, please share your thoughts in the comment section below.
