Microsoft Word auto recover and Dropbox

In Word if you accidentally forget to save a document before you close it, Word discards the AutoRecovery file which contained the changes. So stupid.

You can work around this by going into Word preferences and changing the location of the AutoRecovery file from its default to somewhere on your Dropbox folder.

Then if you accidentally close a Word doc without saving it, the AutoRecovery file is still deleted, but Dropbox keeps a copy of the deleted file!

You go into the web version of Dropbox, click on “show deleted files” and it is right there, available for recovery.

BUT — the recovered file, which looks like a DOCX file and has the DOCX extension, will not open in Word! You get an error message:

Word cannot open the file because the file format does not match the file extension.

I found two solutions to this, but I have not fully tested them on a complicated Word file, just on simple test versions.

Solution 1 — change the extension to .txt and then open in TextEdit, but you may lose formatting

Solution 2 — open GoogleDocs on the web, start a new blank doc, find UPLOAD and upload the AutoSave file. Then find DOWNLOAD and bring it back to your Mac. Then it will open in Word.

Does someone proficient in Word knows a way to either specify to Word to save the last AutoRecover even if the user chooses "Don't Save", or a way to trick Word into opening the Dropbox AutoRecover file.

Thanks