How to find a lost file in Microsoft Office Autorecovery

Never mind! The link that alokkpatel posted helped me figure it out! PHEW! Thanks, everyone!!!

margb, Your contribution keeps on giving. I was separately searching for the latest version of my document after my power shut down - for 2 hours! Then I came across your message. You are immortal. Plus, I am a Michigan State fan (when Michigan isn't playing State)! Thanks!

I'm yet another grateful fan, margb, for your very helpful advice. Encountered a few extra wrinkles, though, that might be useful for others, especially if anybody can explain them.

I have a Word doc that I keep open all the time for miscellaneous notes, doing a Save after each update (usually...), tho had failed to do so after last update two days ago. Got a power hit this morning that took down my iMac. Upon restart, my Word doc appeared as of the last Save, followed by the auto-recovered version that had my recent update in it. Before I could do anything, both documents "magically" switched fonts to something very weird: a mix of Dingbats, Cyrillic letters, Chinese I think, maybe other junk. Totally unreadable. Never have seen this, previously. Fearing the docs were corrupted, I didn't save either of them. Quit Word. Restarted Word, my notes doc had normal fonts (but minus the recent update, of course). Looked in Word Preferences to see where it was putting auto-recovery documents, found that entry (and most others) blank (??). Found your post, found my AutoRecovery folder full of stuff but nothing more recent than 3 days ago, i.e. nothing after my last update (??). Went into Time Machine with the Office 2011 AutoRecovery folder open, looked at yesterday afternoon, presto, there was an .asd file that's not in the current folder. Restored that file, opened it, found my data (i.e., the auto-recovered version following my last update). Happy camper. (Fortunately, that last update -- notes from a conference call -- was not critical, so my stress level was nowhere near that of your fans who'd lost dissertations etc.!)

Moral: if you don't find your file in the AutoRecovery folder, check Time Machine, you may yet be saved.

But what made the fonts go kablooey? And was that "just" a presentation-layer thing (i.e. wrong display), or was it actual corruption of the data? I have to agree with other commenters who've noted the astonishing ways Microsoft software can manage to go bad.

margb,

You made my day! Saved me up to 6 hours, spared me a lot of hassle, and my surroundings from a lot of cursing : ) . Thank you so much!

I could not follow user margb's way to recover (maybe my OS is 10.9.5). So I use "Terminal" app from "Utilities."

So you launch a "Terminal.app"

you will see (assume AAAAA is my user name, all Bold is shown on Terminal.app )

AAAAAs-MacBook-Air:~ AAAAA$

then I type "ls" then it show all folders and files on my name (AAAAA) directory

Applications Library

Books Movies

Box Sync Music

Calibre Library Pictures

Desktop Prezi

Documents Public

Downloads Samsung

then I go to each folder step by step (you can do it all in once like this: /L1Folder/L2Folder/L3Folder.... if you know the directory path)

AAAAAs-MacBook-Air:~ AAAAA$ cd Library

AAAAAs-MacBook-Air:Library AAAAA$ cd Application\ Support

AAAAAs-MacBook-Air:Application Support AAAAA$ cd Microsoft

AAAAAs-MacBook-Air:Microsoft AAAAA$ cd Office

AAAAAs-MacBook-Air:Office AAAAA$ cd Office\ 2011\ AutoRecovery/

then I use "ls" again to show all files in this "Office 2011 AutoRecovery" directory", I found that "WordWorkFile A_114668353.asd" is what I want to recover,

AAAAAs-MacBook-Air:Office 2011 AutoRecovery AAAAA$ ls

WordWorkFile A_114668353.asd

Word Work File A_863983420.asd

Word Work File A_863983420.xlsx

Word Work File A_888027746.asd

Word Work File A_894240510.asd

Then I type "cp file ~/Desktop" to the "Desktop" folder under my user name (or you can copy to any folder if you know the path)

AAAAAs-MacBook-Air:Office 2011 AutoRecovery AAAAA$ cp WordWorkFile A_114668353.asd ~/Desktop/

AAAAAs-MacBook-Air:Office 2011 AutoRecovery AAAAA$

Which means it is finished

Another grateful one, saved -- THANK YOU!

Thank you!!!

Two methods to find an auto recovered file from Microsoft Office on a Macbook...

My girlfriend just had an issue finding her auto recovered file. We searched using online suggestions for an hour and she was ready to give up, but she found it. We found all sorts of google suggestions using some "Go" button (something that newer MacBooks don't even have). Though this method worked for her, I tried it on my mac, and apparently my Microsoft Word doesn't use the same auto recovery location.

Some specifics of our systems: hers is a 2014 macbook pro, and mine is a 2010 macbook pro, and we are both running Microsoft Word 2011

I have posted two methods below which detail how to find the auto recovery folder on both her mac and mine, respectively. Here are the methods:

METHOD 1:

1) open spotlight (hold command and tap the space bar)

2) type "mac hd"

3) open the file that looks like a metallic box (your "Mac HD") by double clicking on it

4) now open "users"

5) now open the house-shaped icon that is likely titled with your name

6) open "library"

7) open "application support"

8) open "microsoft"

9) open "office"

10) open "office 2011 autorecovery", and hopefully your file is in there

METHOD 2:

follow steps 1) through 5) above

6) open "documents"

7) open "microsoft user data"

8) open "office 2011 auto recovery" and hopefully your file is there

If these methods don't work, and you're starting to doubt that the file was auto recovered, check your saving settings in your version of word. You can check this in Microsoft 2011 by going opening word-->click on "word" in the banner at the top of your screen-->click "preferences"-->click "save"-->check and see if the box for "Save AutoRecover info every:" is checked. If it is, then keep searching! If not, then maybe keep searching anyway 🙂

If these methods don't work, the auto recovery file folder is likely saved in some other location on your computer (why it saves in different locations depending on the computer, I don't know). I have been unable to find the folder "Office 2011 AutoRecovery" in the spotlight search bar, and from what I understand this is because it is a hidden folder. If you can't find it by typing it in, don't loose hope - keep looking.

Hope you all find your files! 🙂

Take a deep breath and try and let the stress go.

Thank you! Gah! I'm so relieved...

Thank you so much!!! I have already spent an hour searching my computer - and my file was also invisible!! I am so glad I used this 3rd party app - it worked like a hot darn, and now I can save my file 'for real'!!!!

This did not work for me...but I figured out that I had saved my file in a temp folder for mail attachments (in gmail's trash, to boot). This happened because I searched for the file I wanted to edit, and it was in one of those temp folders (which I did not realize), then I made my changes and blindly saved the revisions in the same folder. Restarted my mac and it was gone.

WHEN NOTHING ELSE WORKS DO THIS

I am an irresponsible Mac User - I don't update my computer, I never power it down, I leave it in my cold car (I live in northern Canada), I always have a million things running at the same time. It crashes occasionally, but I rely on autosave to bring back my word documents for me. It is not uncommon for me to finish an entire paper, citations and all, before I save it.

About an hour ago my computer crashed and the essay I was working on recovered to a version from about 7 hours ago (VERY BAD). I tried EVERYTHING that I could find on the web, every terminal command, looked in the auto recovery files, the temporary files. I did all of the things and none of them worked.

And then I found a post on this thread from an ANGEL that linked to this site: http://apps.tempel.org/FindAnyFile/

ITS FREE OMG - they expect you pay the very reasonable fee of $6 if you continue to use it. And it found my file and my life is saved.

It can be purchased from iTunes here: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/find-any-file/id402569179?mt=12

You just saved me hours of my life. I was literally in tears. Thank you so much!!!!!

Wow, thats is super awesome. You are life saver!!!!

I was working on excel file for a long time and my macbook turned off due to power. Next time when it opened it recovered the excel file and I saved it with a name so I can use it later. I thought I have saved file into a folder where i wanted it to be. Later in the day when I checked the folder the file was not there, I freaked out and looked everywhere in finder and was really mad that even though i saved file i can find it now.

Lucky me seriously lucky me, i found your post on google and followed the path. Bammm i find the file in recovery folder. I quickly grabbed it from there and copied it to my respective folder and file is good and has all the latest content. Phew man...cant thank you enough.

Sometimes technologies try to be smart but it gives us the **** of trouble.

Cheers

Thank you so much - you saved hours of my life