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You should be backing up your computer regularly to protect your data. The file will be restored to its previous location and be available to the OS and other applications.
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The first place you should look for any lost or deleted file is the Windows Recycle Bin. These methods will work on all versions of the operating system from Windows 7 to the newest iteration of Windows 11.
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We will run through several methods with which you may be able to retrieve a deleted Word file. We recommend that you turn on AutoRecover and set the save interval to a small number to minimize the amount of work that may be lost. If the document you are searching for is not listed, select File > Info > Manage Documents (or Manage Versions ) > Recover Unsaved Documents.Navigate to the folder where the file was last found. If AutoRecover has been configured, use the following procedure to recover your unsaved Word documents: Ensure that both the ‘Save AutoRecover information every X minutes’ and ‘Keep the last autosaved version if I close without saving’ are checked.It’s built into Word but needs to be configured if you want to use it to protect your documents.įollow these steps to configure AutoRecover in Word: In these cases, the AutoRecover feature might be able to get your data back. You could come back from a short break and find your machine is frozen and you need to reboot it. You might need to recover an unsaved document if Word crashed while you were working on a file.
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