How to recover unsaved word document mac without autorecovery?

About recovering unsaved word document on Mac without autorecovery. Let’s talk about the AutoRecovery feature in Word. This is like the superhero cape for Word documents! If you’ve set it up correctly, Word should automatically save copies of your work.

Where to Find It: Check out the AutoRecovery folder by going to Finder > Go > Go to Folder, and type in ~/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Word/Data/Library/Preferences/AutoRecovery/. If you see any files there, odds are one of them could be your hero!

If you can’t find your document in AutoRecovery, don't forget about temporary files. Sometimes Word saves your working files in unexpected places.

Where to Look: Head to your Temporary Items folder. You can access it by opening Finder and using the shortcut Command + Shift + G and typing in /private/var/folders/ and digging through the subfolders. This is a bit of a treasure hunt, but sometimes treasures are hidden away!

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AI / LLM are basically a Super Version of Predictive Text which is based upon a Data Set.

When that Data Set is based upon older data points, the outcome of the response will be equally out dated and / or unreliable

AI is also the newest form for Data Mining by Large Corporations.

Suggest being very careful about this.

Some suggestions can be incorrect, misinformed , incomplete, impossible to do, out right wrong and may supply outdated links that are no longer relevant to current conditions

An example being and could be appearing in an earlier posting

Disk Utilities would not the the right application to Find files

Intro to Disk Utility on Mac

Using macOS's built-in "Find My Files" feature to recover unsaved word document from Mac:

1. Go to Finder > Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility.
2. Select your startup disk (usually named "Macintosh HD") from the list of devices on the left.
3. Click on "Search" and select "File" from the menu bar.
4. Type in a keyword related to your unsaved document (e.g., a sentence or phrase) and click "Enter".
5. If your file appears in the search results, you can try to open it and see if it's recoverable.

Recovery a file ?

If you have used or are using Time Machine Backup Utility  you maybe able to Restore the Deleted Files 

For future purposes

To truly protect your non replaceable Data - have a 3-2-1 Rescue Plan in place and always current

3 Backups using 2 methods and 1 off site incase of natural disaster or un-natural disaster.

Each of the above should be done to a Dedicated Single Purposed External Drive 

The below is intended to augment what TM Backup does and not to replace TM Backup

https://bombich.com

oh boy. this is quite unbelievable. here is how I found my auto recovered Excel file (not what I expected at all):

1. I kept searching for a term that I knew was in the document, the term was "spruce".
2. My finder brought up results from other files I had saved at that time using term "spruce" (some screenshots I had taken and a pdf.
3. Those results gave me the date of "11/24/24"
4. I changed all of my folders to show a "date created" and sorted by date. I looked in desktop, documents, downloads for the 11/24/24 date.
5. I found a different file I had been working on in Excel on 11/24/24 in the my documents.
6. I clicked on that file and when it opened, at the top in a little call-out ribbon/dialog box in yellow at the top said something like "Auto Recovered - you have an unsaved version of your document do you want to open it" with a button for "yes" or "no". I clicked yes.
7. all of a sudden 3 "auto recovered" excel files I had been apparently last working with on 11/24/124 came up with titles of "book 1 (version 1).xlsb - auto recovered" (see screenshot below)

8. when I click on the little down carrot to the right of auto recovered, it brings up this box:

9. I went to a random, different Excel file and opened it to see if the same little call-out ribbon/dialog box in yellow at the top said something like "Auto Recovered - you have an unsaved version of your document do you want to open it" would open......it DID NOT. the little dialogue box was not there.

10. therefore, if I had NOT found the date and went looking for the date in my mac's folders/files (i.e. downloads, documents, etc), I wouldn't have found the other work I had done on that date. For some reason, the Excel file that was stored in my documents with same date must have had two versions - one where I had saved it, and one where I had not (and it auto recovered). Clicking on the saved version brought up the autorecovery dialogue box. 11. obviously I have autorecovery set to "on" in my excel and this is why I couldn't locate the auto recovered files using library/containers etc the way I do with Word?

thank you anyone for any guidance/feedback on all of this.

@aureliw

your solution above specifically using the "go to folder" with the ~ symbol was how this was solved for me (for my Microsoft word files). I can't find a missing excel file (went to auto recovered docs most likely when my computer shut down from low battery). on my older computer, the excel files would be auto recovered into the same pathway/folder. on my current set up running Sonoma 14.3.1 with Microsoft for Mac version Version 16.93.1 (25011917) Home and Student version (2021) when I try to type: ~/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Excel/Data/Library/Preferences/AutoRecovery/ (replacing Excel for Word in the prompt you had typed above) yields no results.

on this link from Microsoft, https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/recover-files-in-office-for-mac-6c6425b1-6559-4bbf-8f80-4f038402ff02, I see that the prompt is slightly different, so I typed into the "go to folder" the following: ~/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Excel/Data/Library/Application Support/Microsoft which took me to a weird area of folders that included some folders, but no auto recovered folder like the Word pathway did. here is a screenshot of the "weird area" this second prompt brought me to:

please help me find my excel file! thank you!!!

I've worked with clients who have implemented a 3-2-1 Rescue Plan and seen firsthand the benefits and challenges that come with it. While it's true that having multiple backups and locations provides added security, it can also lead to increased complexity and costs.

With more backups and locations to manage, there's a higher chance of human error, such as accidentally overwriting or deleting files. When recovering unsaved word document Mac, you'll need to navigate through multiple backups and locations, which can be time-consuming and frustrating.

shinyckz wrote:

The Word app suddenly crashed when I was preparing for a project details. When I tried to open the same file, the content was not there. Is there any way to recover unsaved word document mac without autorecovery? Not sure it is the issue with word app or the latest os update?

Probably not, but you can at least check a few things ...

If you have a previous version of the Word document saved, you could go back to that version.

Check Word > Preferences > Save > Save Options > Save Autorecover info. It is normally enabled by default. If enabled there may be an autosave copy of the document in: ~/Library/Containers/com.Microsoft/Data/Library/Preferences/AutoRecovery. (Note you must use the Finder's Go > Go to folder menu item to navigate to that hidden folder.)

While you are editing a Word document, Word stores the active edits in a TMP file, which is only saved when you save the document. In a crash this TMP file normally disappears ... but on the chance it may still be on disk, try searching for all *.TMP files.

If you realize you've lost a document, don’t immediately quit Word! Sometimes, it will prompt you to recover your work upon reopening it. If you close the app right away, you might miss that chance. It’s like closing the door on a surprise party before you’ve even seen what’s inside!

Sometimes Microsoft Word has a little hidden feature that can help. You can check the Recent Documents list even if you didn’t save it. How to recover unsaved word document on Mac? Open Word, and go to File > Open Recent. If the document is there, woohoo! Just click and retrieve it. Make this a regular habit—keep an eye on this list for documents you frequently access.

If you could not find the unsaved word document from cache folder or backup, the try to recover them with a data recovery software: https://gist.github.com/Orismann/recover-files-on-mac

The sooner you start the task, the higher chance to recover the unsaved word document on your mac.

also @aureliw

check this out I just found on a microsoft forum. very over my head and I'm not sure if the solution is here?

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/excel-autorecovery-location-finally-found/3d31fd4c-3661-4ce4-b136-d71eea36ac26