Word document completely disappeared?

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Level 1

10 points

Word document completely disappeared?

I recently printed a Word document from my brand-new Macbook Pro (I have Word for Mac 2011). I then closed the document, clicking "save" (i am 99% sure I clicked this). A few days later, I needed to make some changes to the document but could not find it in the location where I had saved it. A Spotlight search revealed no files with what I had titled the document. Using Terminal, I made all hidden/invisible files visible, and could not find it that way either. In Word's Project Gallery, a search of recent documents turned up the missing one, but there was no icon above the name and when I clicked it, I got a message telling me that Word could not find the file. I have pretty much accepted that I will have to retype the document, but am intensely curious as to what happened ! Even if, when closing the document, I clicked "don't save," that does not explain why the document appears to have vanished off the face of the earth !

Any help would be greatly appreciated !

macbook pro, Mac OS X (10.5.4)

Posted on Oct 16, 2011 5:21 PM

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Answer 1

epocalize Author

Level 1

10 points

Oct 16, 2011 5:26 PM in response to epocalize

I also looked in the Trash, which I have not emptied, and the document is not there either. It shows up in my print history, but I don't think I can open anything from there

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Answer 2

tjk

Level 9

51,292 points

Oct 16, 2011 6:59 PM in response to epocalize

Hi e,

If you didn't hit Save, there is no mystery. Doc existed for a few minutes, you printed it, it's gone.

Was it titled in Recent Docs? If not, that further supports not saved; if it was titled, hmmmm, sounds like a corrupt file and something to watch for awhile when you use/save Word docs. An Office re-install could be in order if anything like it happens again.

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Answer 3

Allan Jones

Level 10

83,780 points

Oct 16, 2011 7:08 PM in response to epocalize

This is a follow-up to tjk's excellent advice about checking for "recent." While in Word, click the file menu and go to "Open Recent" like this:

This is in Office 2008. I know Office 2011 moved the furniture about, but it may still be under the "File" tab that 2011 added.

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Answer 4

epocalize Author

Level 1

10 points

Oct 17, 2011 8:19 AM in response to tjk

I had saved the document at least a few times previously, I am a compulsive saver. Additionally, I had been working on the document for a few days and had opened and closed it successfully before. There is "open recent" in 2011 Word in the same location; my document does not appear in the dropdown list. However, this happened about a week ago so it easily could have been "kicked out" of the list by other, more recent documents. I'm a college student, so I create a lot of Word documents !

I ended up just retyping it and it didn't take too long - definitely not the end of the world. Just trying to figure out what happened !

Thanks for the advice, all

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Answer 5

epocalize Author

Level 1

10 points

Oct 17, 2011 8:21 AM in response to Allan Jones

Thanks for the advice,"Open Recent" is in the same location in 2011 Word as it is in 2008 Word. I appreciate your help !

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Answer 6

tjk

Level 9

51,292 points

Oct 17, 2011 6:19 PM in response to epocalize

epocalize wrote:

I had saved the document at least a few times previously, I am a compulsive saver.

Just trying to figure out what happened !

Me too. 😉

Given that you had saved the doc previously, as you know, it doesn't matter if you saved it again or if it lost its place in "Recent," it must still exist unless something is corrupt.

Something is corrupt.

If you believe it's just this doc, which can/does happen, then continue as is.

If, otoh, you're not convinced, make sure you have TM or another incremental backup set up. That way, if/when it happens again, to that 42 page research paper which you don't yet have a hard copy of, you can simply go back in time and get the saved doc before it disappeared. Either that, or go looking for each of your docs each time you work with them and see if they're ok. That's a big "not" for me.

With TM you should be safe in most situations, but at minimum I'd run Verify/Repair Disk and Repair Permissions. And if you don't have at least 15% free space available on your HD, that might explain things with directory corruption. Finally, reinstalling Office isn't too difficult.

Good luck to you. 😉

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Answer 7

kakeinc

Level 1

0 points

Oct 20, 2011 5:50 PM in response to epocalize

The same thing just happened to me! And, no, I did not have time machine set up so I'm bummed. I was up all night rewriting my resume and now it's gone.

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Answer 8

Feb 26, 2013 8:37 AM in response to epocalize

Hello everyone! I just had the exact same problem! I am currently working on a paper. Yesterday I wrote an additional page for it, and added an image which I created in Excel. I am also a very compulsive saver. Additionally, the file is saved in my personal dropbox. Today when I opened the folder, I was already surprised to see that the Date Modified did't say yesterday, but two days before in the evening. The newest version of my file is completely missing, the image in the Excel file is still there. I already thought I was seeing things that didn't happen, but apparentely I am not the only one with this problem 😉. One day's work is completely gone! I also checke recent files, but all files in there only show changes from 2 days before or from today, and NOTHING yesterday. It's as if I had not added any text at all yesterday... if somebody knows anything, help would be really appreciated. Thanks!

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Answer 9

Feb 26, 2013 8:43 AM in response to epocalize

I'm also extremely curious what happened! How is it possible that it says "0" in recent files for the activity yesterday??? So weird.

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Answer 10

Mar 30, 2013 7:32 AM in response to epocalize

I just had this happen to me, whereby I had a document that I was working on open/saved and now it has totally vanished. I remember that I had to restart from a security update just recently, I'm wondering if that had anything to do with my file going missing?

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Answer 11

May 10, 2013 5:41 AM in response to epocalize

Updated osx and office last night and same thing happened to me, just the one document that was open disappeared. Saved multiple times and i've been to support services at my uni and they say if it isn't in spotlight or recent documents it's gone!

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