Word Document Lost After Computer Crashed

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Word Document Lost After Computer Crashed

Hi! I have. been working on a document for the past month. My new MacBook Air suddenly crashed this afternoon, and when I started my computer again, the file had reverted to a version from two weeks ago. I have watched YouTube videos at nauseam to try to recover the most recent version of the document, to no avail. This project is due soon and I don't see how I will be able to make up for two weeks of lost work. But the different videos gave me instructions that didn't work on my Mac. I can't even find anything when I search for "AutoRecovery." I'm new to Macs so I understand that they're different from PCs. But should they really vary that much from one Mac to another? The paths I was told to take to recover my document simply didn't work. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I'm at a standstill.

MacBook

Posted on Mar 29, 2021 10:53 AM

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Answer 1

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MrHoffman

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Mar 29, 2021 11:39 AM in response to angievelasquez

angievelasquez wrote:

Thanks! I don't know how to do that. If it requires Time Machine, mine wasn't set up. Is there another way to do so?

Well, go get Time Machine configured and going. Right now.

Back up your Mac with Time Machine - Apple Support

Most of us have experienced data loss. Backups won't help with this data loss, but it can help with the next.

As for this Microsoft Office Word document? Whether Microsoft Office Word maintained the document recovery info is unclear, and whether whatever subsequently happened might have effected any saved recovery information is also unclear.

Here is what Microsoft provides:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/recover-files-in-office-for-mac-6c6425b1-6559-4bbf-8f80-4f038402ff02

In this Microsoft AutoRecovery documentation, Microsoft does also recommend saving early and often, or enabling and using the Office autosave feature. Neither of which help with this case, but might or can help with the next.

If there's no AutoRecovery, and no autosave, and no Time Machine, the (unsaved?) work here appears to be gone.

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