How to Recover an Unsaved Word Document

Tricia Goss has been a writer and editor for 10+ years. She's written tips and tutorials for Microsoft Office applications and other sites.

What to Know

• Try this first: Go to File >Manage Documents >Recover Unsaved Documents. Select the document if it's listed.
• To see if there's a backup: Go to File >Open >Browse and search for a backup of the file.
• Or, go to Windows Explorer and look for any recovered or temp files that might be the lost Word document.

This article explains some workarounds that may help you recover an unsaved Word document. Instructions apply to Word 2019, Word 2016, Word 2013, Word Online, Word for Mac, and Word for Microsoft 365.

Recover a Document in Word 2016 and Word 2013

For both Word 2016 and Word 2013, you have a few methods that may result in the recovery of your Word document. Each method can be executed quickly, enabling you to search for multiple files easily.

Using Word's Recover Unsaved Documents Feature

Select the Manage Document button.

If that doesn't recover your missing Word file, continue attempting to find and save it.

Using Word to Find a Backup

Using Windows Explorer

Press Win+E to open Windows Explorer if you are unable to locate the file.

Open the following locations in Windows Explorer:

• C:\Users\\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Word
• C:\Users\\AppData\Local\Temp
• C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Word

Look for any recovered or temp files that might be your lost Word document.

You can also perform a search on your computer for .wbk files, which are backup versions of Microsoft Word documents:

Go to the Start menu, then use the search box to search for ".wbk" files. Open any .wbk files that appear to determine which is the missing Word doc you need.

Prevent Future Disasters With AutoSave and AutoRecover

To save yourself the stress, worry, and time of trying to recover an unsaved Word document in the future, take steps now to keep it from happening again.

If you have an Microsoft 365 subscription, use AutoSave to save changes to documents in real time. AutoSave is enabled whenever a file is saved to OneDrive or SharePoint. Every few seconds, Word automatically saves any changes to the cloud.

To make sure AutoSave is enabled, look for the AutoSave toggle button in the upper-left corner of your Microsoft Word window.

If you are not an Microsoft 365 subscriber, you can enable AutoRecover to automatically save changes to a file in increments of time that you determine:

Recover a Document in Word Online

If you create documents using Word Online, you're in luck. There's no Save button because any changes you make to a document are automatically saved.

Recover a Document in Word for Mac

By default, AutoRecover is enabled in Word for Mac. If your computer shuts down unexpectedly before you saved a Word document, you'll be prompted to open the recovered file. Otherwise, you can look for the file in the AutoRecover folder.

In Word for Mac 2016, you will first need to show hidden files. After that feature is activated, you can search for the lost document.

Open Finder, click the Home icon in the left column, then open Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Word/Data/Library/Preferences/AutoRecovery. Any documents saved by the AutoRecover feature will be listed here.

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