How to recover that un-saved Microsoft Office Excel, Word, or PowerPoint file you closed before saving

Have you ever started a new Microsoft Office Excel, Word, or PowerPoint file and been getting pretty far along when you accidentally close the document before saving it (or lose power and the computer shuts down, etc.)? Here’s a helpful little tip for any of you out there that happen to find yourself in the situation I did this morning. In my case, I was building a large Excel spreadsheet and went to go delete a tab (while multi-tasking) and just after I clicked the “confirm” box, realized I just confirmed to close my whole Excel sheet without saving it, not just to delete my single tab. Ouch!!

Of course the Excel guru who normally sits relatively close to me was off in a meeting somewhere and I certainly didn’t want to start this whole project over, especially since this is for a 1:00 meeting today. I know, I know… Save, save, save as you go. Usually I do but today I didn’t. So now what?!!? Here is where Microsoft Office 2010 saved the day (and several hours of work!)

Microsoft Office has a fantastic feature built in where it can recover unsaved new documents (just in case you do what I did)! Now in order to use this feature, you will need to have Save AutoRecover information... and Keep the last autosaved version if I close without saving enabled inside Microsoft Office. (If you’re not sure if you do, I have included the steps to enable this at the bottom of this post).

Here are the steps to take to recover your unsaved new document in Microsoft Office Excel, Work, or PowerPoint 2010 if you inadvertently close it before saving it:

1. Open the Office 2010 applications that you were using.
2. Click the File tab.
3. Click Recent.
4. Click Recover Unsaved Documents if you are in Word 2010, Recover Unsaved Workbooks if you are in Excel 2010 or Recover Unsaved Presentations if you are in PowerPoint 2010.

1. Your saved drafts folder will open in a new window. Select the file and then click Open.
2. In the business bar at the top of the file, click Save As to save your file to your computer.

You can also access these files by using these steps:

1. Open the Office 2010 application you were using.
2. Open a new file or any existing file.
3. Click the File tab.
4. Click Info.
5. Click Manage Versions.
6. Click Recover Unsaved Documents if you are in Word 2010, Recover Unsaved Workbooks if you are in Excel 2010 or Recover Unsaved Presentations if you are in PowerPoint 2010.
7. You will see the list of your unsaved files. Select the file and click Open.
8. In the business bar at the top of the file, click Save As to save your file to your computer.

Notes

You can also browse to one of the following file locations to open the file, depending on your operating system:

• Windows 7/Windows Vista
  C:\Users\User_Name\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Office\UnsavedFiles
• Windows XP
  C:\Documents and Settings\User_Name\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Office\UnsavedFiles

Important These file locations cannot be changed.

• Files in this folder will be kept for four days after creation.

I followed the steps above and sure enough, my unsaved Excel sheet was right there and ready to go!

Now, as promised in the beginning of this post, here is how to enable AutoRecover and AutoSave to protect your files in Microsoft Office:

1. Click the File tab.

1. Under Help, click Options.
2. Click Save.
3. Make sure the Save AutoRecover information every x minutes check box is selected.
4. In Word 2010, Excel 2010 and PowerPoint 2010, make sure the Keep the last autosaved version if I close without saving check box is selected.

Important The Save button is still your best friend. To be sure you don’t lose your latest work, click Save (or press CTRL+S) often.

 

Tips:

• To be extra safe, enter a small number in the minutes box, like 10. That way, you’ll never lose more than 10 minutes of work.
• On the other hand, if you want to make Office faster, try entering a larger number in the minutes box, like 20.

Hopefully you never find yourself in the position to need these auto-recovery tools with your documents, but if you do, hopefully the steps above will come in handy for you and save your day like it did for me today. Thank you, Microsoft Office!!

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Thank you and have a wonderful day,

Eric Ligman – Follow me on TWITTER, LinkedIn, and RSS and see “What I’m thinking”
Director, Worldwide Partner Experience
Microsoft Corporation
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights

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Comments

• Anonymous
  April 20, 2012
  Thanks for the valuable and informative post!! I really liked this.

• Anonymous
  April 25, 2012
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  April 29, 2012
  Thanks for sharing the info!

• Anonymous
  December 09, 2015
  Thank you - I just closed the Word tab by mistake but now have my work back. The relief is almost overwhelming - thank you!!

• Anonymous
  January 12, 2016
  Thanks. Clear, and got me out of a jam.

• Anonymous
  January 13, 2016
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  January 22, 2016
  Thanks a lot mate you saved me

• Anonymous
  January 26, 2016
  Used Very Successfully. Super Good Job Ok USA!

• Anonymous
  January 30, 2016
  Thank you man, you saved my life!!!I opened the last saved version of my Excel than choose 'versions' and there was my unsaved file, almost where I finished.

• Anonymous
  February 09, 2016
  This helped me A LOT! thank you!

• Anonymous
  February 23, 2016
  i could cry, this just saved my life. Thank you Eric. THANK YOU.

• Anonymous
  March 06, 2016
  You are a lifesaver because my mom was doing a long report took her hours and she made a mistake and delete. SHe was worry upset and sad then I decide to go on your website and see that there are ways to recover your hard workings and you gave two option not one thank you very much

• Anonymous
  March 13, 2016
  Thank You so much... :)

• Anonymous
  March 13, 2016
  Thanks for sharing the information with us!

• Anonymous
  June 10, 2016
  Life-saver! Thank you!

• Anonymous
  June 21, 2016
  Thank you!!!!!!!!!! I love you!!!!!!!!!!!!! (obviously I could find the file!) and in 1 second. You saved my life.

• Anonymous
  June 27, 2016
  thanks for the good job, i got it back

• Anonymous
  July 06, 2016
  I opened an excel spreadsheet that was an email attachment and began working on it. Although I Saved often, I now can't find the finished document. I did not Save As during the work, I only Saved. Is there any way to retrieve all my work? I've tried doing a Search and I get back a number of versions of the spreadsheet, but they are all earlier versions before I started to work on it and Save. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

  • Anonymous
    July 10, 2016
    @Sheryl - If you opened an attachment in an email, made edits, then just pressed "Save," the edits are made to the attachment in the email. It sounds like you never used "Save As" to save a copy onto your computer, which is why your PC search isn't finding it. Go back to the email you opened the attachment from and check the attachment. I believe you will find your edits in there.

• Anonymous
  July 07, 2016
  so glad there's a safety net. thank you so much for this information.

• Anonymous
  July 29, 2016
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  August 04, 2016
  OMG!! This is amazing!! My computer shut down overnight and I lost the spreadsheets I'd been working on that hadn't been saved; I followed the instructions above and found auto save was on; it just wasn't bringing up the correct location..... when I searched for them in the file location there they were! thank you so much.

• Anonymous
  August 04, 2016
  My MS and Excel autosave has been on but it does not save every 10 minutes as set ever. Today, I found my unsaved Word document (2 hours of work would have been lost and unrecoverable) and other files I have "lost" -- Windows 10 files are at: C:/Users/Computer Name (or your name)/Word (or Excel ...)

• Anonymous
  August 23, 2016
  So utterly destroyed right now that I can't figure this out with 2007. Massive spreadsheet I have been working on since 8am this morning and failed to save as I went... Lost it all when excel crashed at 3:50pm. HUGE rookie mistake and I am dumbfounded. Anyone have any suggestions before I go cry under my desk?

• Anonymous
  August 31, 2016
  Thank you so much!! Such a huge help!

• Anonymous
  September 22, 2016
  thank you SO MUCH

• Anonymous
  September 23, 2016
  Thank you this really saved me hours of work that I thought I had lost

• Anonymous
  October 05, 2016
  Thank you much appreciated

• Anonymous
  October 08, 2016
  Thank you for this, I lost a large amount of work, this has saved me a week of re doing it!, worked in IT long enough, should know better!! will save regularly now!

• Anonymous
  October 17, 2016
  Thank you so much!!!!!!!!!!!!

• Anonymous
  October 24, 2016
  what happens if it doesn't appear in the unsaved folder?I've lost hours of work because I tried saving it - ridiculous! computer came up with an excel licensing error - I use office365! Soooo annoying and frustrating

• Anonymous
  October 28, 2016
  Love you!!!

• Anonymous
  December 26, 2016
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  January 20, 2017
  Thanks a lot. My precious time and work has recovered. I always missed to save my work. Now I do not worry

• Anonymous
  January 31, 2017
  You just saved my life!!! Thank you :)

• Anonymous
  February 07, 2017
  I think I might still cry - all the autosave options are checked, but there isn't ANYTHING in the Unsaved Files folder. I will have to start over. Thanks for the info, though.

• Anonymous
  February 15, 2017
  Perfect! THANK YOU so very much! I usually never find the solution I am looking for this fast!Have a wonderful day!

• Anonymous
  February 20, 2017
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  February 21, 2017
  Yes Eric as usual this was very helpful. Thus saving me,my work and save in millions of minutes and millions of brain drain and power this giving me endurance. And again I Commend you.Frm: TBB.

• Anonymous
  February 23, 2017
  thanks u saved my life

• Anonymous
  February 24, 2017
  Waw this was perfect. Just made my day. I was terrified that a work of 3 hrs was gone.

• Anonymous
  March 02, 2017
  Thank you for sharing, you saved my day (and several hours of work!) too :)

• Anonymous
  March 09, 2017
  Thanks. Definitely saved my day!!

• Anonymous
  April 07, 2017
  Thank you so much!!!!

• Anonymous
  April 08, 2017
  IT DIDN"T EVEN AUTOMATICALLY SAVE

• Anonymous
  April 09, 2017
  Hey Eric, Win10 version 1703 update broke Autorecover of Office 2010. No Asd files are created. I was using Word.

• Anonymous
  April 10, 2017
  Thank you, thank you, thank you! Had multiple instances of Word open, closed one and they all closed, thus loosing all my work (big grant proposal!). The information you provided - after a number of fruitless Google searches - allowed me to find my unsaved work. :-)

• Anonymous
  May 30, 2017
  You just save me from having to redo my spreadsheet. I have to remember to keep saving as I go :)

• Anonymous
  June 03, 2017
  This did not work for me :(I accidentally clicked "don't save"I looked for a recovered document, but nothing

• Anonymous
  June 06, 2017
  This did not work. My Excel 2013 document was closed down when my computer was restarted. I lost hundreds of lines of code :-(

• Anonymous
  August 07, 2017
  Phew ....... thank you so much, I followed the instructions above, and was able to recover the Excel document that I accidentally deleted.Yvette

• Anonymous
  November 28, 2017
  This really work for me I accidentally clicked “don’t save”I looked for a recovered document and find it.BIG THANKS from Mongolia