Microsoft Word not saving changes to files upon closing.

If all else fails, boot into Safe Mode according to Start up your Mac in safe mode - Apple Support and test to see if the problem persists. Reboot normally and test again.

NOTE: Safe Mode boot can take up to 10 minutes as it's doing the following; 

• Verifies your startup disk and attempts to repair directory issues, if needed

• Loads only required kernel extensions (prevents 3rd party kernel/extensions from loading)

• Prevents Startup Items and Login Items from opening automatically

• Disables user-installed fonts 

• Deletes font caches, kernel cache, and other system cache files

Is your MS-Office account paid up and up to date? When the payments fall past due the software will still open files but you won't be able to save changes. It sounds like MAYBE that is what happening. But cannot really tell from your description.

ProfFellow wrote:

Hi All,

Running MS Word for Mac 16.36 on a MacBook Air with Catalina 10.15.7 and all of a sudden (at least I hope this hasn't been happening for long) when I save changes to a new document I created and then reopen the document, the changes were not saved. I tried selecting all and making a new document with a different name which all went as expected. Then working on that document again and using command-S I would get no error message but the name of the document in the header changed to WRD0001 instead of what I named it and the changes were not saved when I closed Word and then reopened the document the following day. This has now happened three times with two different documents.

thanks.

For your third party app:

Microsoft Support

/Customer service

1 (800) 642-7676

Somewhere in your Word Preferences is the means to enable autosave… I believe.

Indeed there is:

Though that doesn't explain why a dialogue box isn't appearing when a document with changes - that haven't been saved yet - is being allowed to close without this notice: