FILE WITH NO PATH!! HELP!

Word creates backups to recover from in case of a crash.

They are in the Microsoft User Data folder that is in your Documents folder.

One of the recovered files may be your file.

Usually, when you restart Word, it will ask if you want to recover what you were working on.

Have you tried using the open command in Word to open that document you show in your screen shot.

Try opening that file with a Text Editor, like Text Wrangler (it is free, Bare Bones software). Text Edit may work, too.

You will likely see lots of jibberish, but scroll down and you may be able extract chunks of text where you can paste it back into a new Word document.

Can you make a copy of that file? Might be a good idea so you don't wreck the file any more than it is, and you may be able to rename the copy with a .docx extension.

Do you have a backup that might have at least part of the file?

To get the location you could perform the Spotlight search, hover over the file in the Spotlight list (you'll see a preview of the file to the left). Now hold Command down until you see the file path at the bottom.

This file is in the Documents folder.

wuantonsoup wrote:

If I do it's not in the folder you specified. I wouldn't know if i did or where it would be. The file is on my hard drive though. It's just not accessible. Also, it's not an alias it's the original so I don't know why it thinks it's an alias. Under kind it still says Microsoft Word Document.

I mean a backup like Time Machine, Carbon Copy Cloner, etc.

It sounds like Word did what it is best known for, completely destroy your data at the worst possible time.

So, the only way I see recovering your work is from a backup. With Time Machine, you can go back in Time in the folder the file existed and restore what it has backed up.

This problem suggests an error in the filesystem. Try opening Disk Utility and use it to verify your hard drive to ensure there are no errors in the filesystem formatting.

Have you tried logging out then back in, or rebooting? That might clear up a glitch.

It would suggest the reason for your rogue file could be an error in the inode structure of the file system. It may be that the filesystem recognizes an inode here but does not have proper information about it (ie, metadata that helps it identify the file, define a group and user, file size, and how the file is accessed by those with permission to do so).