Recovering unsaved word doc on OSX

OMG YOUR ANSWER THAT YOU PROBABLY DON'T REMEMBER POSTING JUST SAVED ME FROM LOSING MY WORK THAT IS DUE TODAY. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOUUUU!!!! I JUST COULDN'T THANK YOU ENOUGH. LITERALLY.

PS: SORRY FOR THE CAPITAL LETTERS, I AM JUST SUPER GRATEFUL RIGHT NOW. ONCE AGAIN, THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH

Just in case anyone finds their way here by Google, as I did looking for how to find the Office 2016 autosave files...

You can locate them by going clicking the Go menu in the Finder, choosing Go To Folder and pasting:

~/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Word/Data/Library/Preferences/AutoRecovery/

in the box.

You may need to rename any files you find there as .doc instead of .docx if they won't open properly.

Hope this helps someone,

Adi 🙂

None of the suggestions on this helped me but I figured it out!!

I was having an absolute nightmare, I accidentally deleted an entire section of my dissertation without noticing and then saved the document so needed to find a previous version to restore that section.

I went into documents where the file was, right clicked it and opened with text edit. Went into file, then revert to, then browse all versions. This opens a new page with the current version on the left and all other previous versions on the right.

I know this thread is for recovering an entire document that cannot be found in the first place but I'm sure I wasn't the first and won't be the last for this situation!!

Sir,

Today, I was shocked that I have not found my unsaved review article that I was working on for weeks and kept me busy. I found it using your suggestion. I want to you to know how much I appreciate this tip.

Many thanks 😁

I did as you suggested however my file was not there. Instead an even older version of my word doc was there. Is there a way to find the newest version?? Thanks for this feature though. I never knew it existed. Very good to know for future reference.

Hi,

Don't give up. It also might be in other folders. So, first type open $TMPDIR in terminal. If you can't find it according to other replies to this post. Check folder: com.microsoft.Word , and look for a word looking with bigger size and it could be .asd file. Click and open it (it opens in word) then copy your things and paste somewhere else. Another option is pdf. It doesn't save as any thing but PDF which is good. It saved me! I hope it works for you too.

After writing a 10 page final paper all day long i was nearing the end at about 2:30 am and all of a sudden my computer just shut down. I instantly feared the worst and I was correct, I hadn't saved my paper since 10:00 am this morning and about 8 pages of work was gone. After sobbing for a few minutes i picked myself up and tried every trick i could find online (including everything on this forum) to no avail. It was about 5:00 am at this point and i was ready to give up when I stumbled upon a miracle! Follow this simple procedure and you can recover you doc in about 30 seconds.

Look Auto Recovery folder

Office 2016 autosaved files located in the following address.

• Click the Go menu in Finder.
• Select Go to Folder and paste the following file location address.

~/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Word/Data/Library/Preferences/AutoRecovery/

Note : You may need to rename .doc instead of .docx, if they won’t open properly in MS Word app.

In Older Microsoft Office versions uses Auto recovery folder in different location:-

/Users/user-name/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Office/Office 2011 AutoRecovery

Thank you my hero ---- I managed to find this doc but couldn't open it. Followed your advice to change its find name, and it works.

By the way, in case any Microsoft engineer is reading this, I would like to ask, in a nice and polite manner,

WHY THE **** DON'T YOU TELL ME WHERE TO RETRIEVE THE AUTORECOVERED FILE IF YOU LET ME CHOOSE HOW FREQUENTLY TO SAVE IT? WHY DO I NEED TO SEARCH ONLINE FOR HOURS TO FIND THE RIGHT ANSWER? SERIOUSLY, IT'S JUST A BUTTON, A HYPERLINK, TO THE FOLDER! AND WHY DO I NEED TO RENAME IT JUST TO GET IT OPENED? ****!

Thank you SOOOOOOOOOO much for this. Saved me a potential re-write of X+ hours despite my auto save settings set at 3 minutes. Tried all the other good suggestions but this is the one that had my recovery file in it.

Thanks again 😀

I had lost substantial revisions to a paper I am writing, I hadn't saved them when word quit on me.
No autorecovery files to be found
No active time share back up.

I used ufly soft data recovery and found it!

A little pricey but worth it!!!!

Here's the link: http://www.uflysoft.com/

I looked everywhere online and have FINALLY found the answer to retrieving your lost document EVEN if AutoRecovery did not save it. This is free with no external software needed, you just need to follow these quick couple steps.

So If you did as everyone else said and found the folder "Office 2008/09/11 AutoRecovery" and your file is still NOT there, that means it is being stored in your computers Temporary or "-Tmp-" folder.

The "-Tmp-" folder is very hard to find, even if you have made hidden folders visible, so what you need to do is go to "Applications"- "Utilities"- "Terminal"

Once you are in the terminal copy this phrase: "open $TMPDIR" and press ENTER. That will open your Temporary files folder where you will see another folder named "Temporaryitems"

Open up the "Temporaryitems" folder and you will find your lost file, that even AutoRecovery could not find. However when you do find your file, make sure you open up the document with "TextEdit" because a .tmp file will not work with Word.

An example name of your lost document will be "WordWorkfile D-57238.tmp"

I spent hours on the internet looking for a solution and this is the only way I have actually been able to find the lost or unsaved file. I hope this helps and I can save everyone some extra hours of time.

I had the same problem. This link is a life savior:

http://jeromyanglim.tumblr.com/post/52856277910/how-to-find-word-auto-recovery-f iles-in-osx

Do not worry, if your auto save is on then you can find the last version in your library just follow the steps.

/Users/"your user name"/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Office/Office 2011 AutoRecovery

Cheers,

1. Take a deep breath. Everything’s going to be ok.
2. Open Finder.
3. Mouse up to the main menu bar and select Go.
4. Hold down Option on your keyboard and select Library from the drop-down menu when it appears.
5. In the finder window, browse to Library > Containers > com.microsoft.Powerpoint > Data > Library > Preferences > AutoRecovery
6. Select the file you’re looking to recover and rename with a .ppt extension.
7. Move the file to the desktop, or another handy location.
8. Reopen, and pick up where you left off.

Maybe you can try uFlysoft Data Recovery for Mac, it can recover LOST DATA on Mac only in three steps:

Step 1. Launch the software to scan the device where your files deleted

Step 2: Preview the scan result files and make mark if it is the one you find

Step 3: Recover files

Other options if you didn't click save for the auto recover version!

• Look in your trash for a "Recovered items" folder
• Go to the Finder, select Go > Go to folder, type/private/var/folders and look for files named "Word Work File" inside a "Temporary items" folder.* Option drag files or folders to the Desktop (or anywhere else) before dropping them on Word's icon. Don't delete anything!

To avoid losing data in the future, save your files as soon as you create them. To reduce the chance that this will happen again, follow Jim Gordon's tip to verify/repair your disk. Also use that same utility to repair permissions (there's abutton to do that).

* Pressing Command F (i.e., File > Find) and searching for "Word Work File" worked for user Lyn Yeowart.

Two links worth a shot:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/mac/forum/macoffice2011-macword/how-do-i-retr ieve-an-unsaved-word-file-on-a-mac/936ebc5e-359c-41b7-881b-d128ffe0c6cc

http://www.slideshare.net/Selena2012/word-document-recovery-mac-recover-unsaved- deleted-and-damaged-word-documentdoc-docx-mountain-lion

Jim