Recovering a Word doc? Any way at all?

22 replies
Hi everyone. Hoping there is some technical loophole that will allow me to resurrect a document that I have been working on all day and just lost.

It is a Word doc. I had it on my laptop and wanted to finish it on my desktop, so I emailed it earlier today. When I got it, I apparently just opened it and started writing. I was hitting SAVE all along the way, but the mistake I made was that I never did SAVE AS when I first started so that it was saving onto the computer itself.

So, when I finished, I clicked SAVE one final time and exited. Then I realized that all my hard work was gone. Does anyone know WHERE this info may have saved? I think the Word doc said "compatibility mode" at the top or something. Can anyone save ME?!

CC
#doc #recovering #word
  • Profile picture of the author Dan C. Rinnert
    It's probably saved where ever you have your eMail program configured to save downloaded files.
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  • Profile picture of the author Goatboy
    Do you know where on the computer all of your other word documents are stored? In a windows environment this is usually under "My Documents" unless you have specified another location. I would go where the documents are usually stored and begin looking first. I have never emailed a word doc, but word is pretty good at remembering things as you move the files back and forth between computers, so I would look for the document under the proper file name and store in the location where Word normally stores your documents.
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    • Profile picture of the author sellerscompanion
      It's definitely not in my Documents. And since I never named it on this computer, I don't know where it could be....
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  • Profile picture of the author wanna-succeed
    If you hit the save button, it is saved, the question is where.
    You might be better off searching for this document. Go into "My Computer" and hit the search button, then search for a file or doc, you will see the different options.
    This should help you find it.
    There is also a "recently saved" folder in most computers. I don't know where it's located in your computer, but it might be in your "My Documents" or "Most Recent Files".

    Hope this helps.
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  • Profile picture of the author Patrick
    You can do a search for *.doc extension...and filter the results by date in search options...

    Hope this helps..

    If not then look in your temp files..it could be somewhere in there..
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  • Profile picture of the author yakim1
    Another way to find the file would be to start another word doc and then hit the "Save As" button and see what file folder it is taking you to. That is the same folder that probably has the doc you want to find.

    I hope this helps
    Steve Yakim
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    • Profile picture of the author Ted_B
      Hello,
      If you were using Microsoft Outlook as your email package, Outlook opens attachments and sticks them in a weird place, treating all attachments as if they were infected with a virus. The location of this folder varies with the operating system and version of Outlook you're using, but you could do a search of your desktop's hard drive to find the olk folder. It's usually OLKxxx, the x's being some random number. So if you search for OLK* you should be okay. Oh, it's also a hidden folder so you'll have to search for hidden folders or you won't find it.
      I hope this helps. I feel your pain, I've been there...
      Ted
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      • Profile picture of the author sellerscompanion
        This is so weird... I cannot find it anywhere! So all the times that I hit save, where in the world was it going? I would think that Word had some kind of error message if something was not saving. So sick over this....
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  • Profile picture of the author tj
    If the file was never saved in a other way most likely your situation is that word did overwrite the previous content and you could recover it only with specialized software that runs in the $$$ . You can still use your original file on the notebook ... but your content you worked on is most likely gone.

    Timo
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  • Profile picture of the author jamesaburger
    Here is one more similar software which can repair and recover word files. I have used this software to recover my corrupted word documents. you can try this one too, Stellar Phoenix Word Repair Software from here: http://www.mannatsoftware.com/stella...rd-repair.html

    Download its demo version first to check whether your database is recoverable or not, if you are able to view your files in preview mode then go for full version and save your word files.

    Thanks
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  • HI, it should be in a temp folder of the email program.

    You can check "name of the email program"+"temp folder" on Google and locate your temp file location.
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  • Profile picture of the author kk075
    I'd bet a dollar that it's in your downloads file, which is C Drive ---> User ---> Downloads

    That's where documents go by default when you download them UNLESS you tell it to go to a specific path. If it's not where I just said it was though, then download something else and see where it saves. Then go to that place and your document will be there too.
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  • Profile picture of the author mdenamul18
    Could you please to check your recent documents? On the other hand you can use left top round buttons recent documents. Even you can check the "Search Option" to find it. If you do not know the exact file name, you can type (.docx) or (.doc) I think you will get the file.
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  • Profile picture of the author Janice Sperry
    I agree with kk075 that it probably ended up in Downloads. Change from alphabet to date and it may be right at the top.

    If that doesn't work... If you are using Windows 7 click the Start button and type in the search the most unique word or phrase you can think of that was in the document. That search feature is amazing and has helped me many times when I could not remember what I named a document. It will show suggestions from everywhere.
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  • Profile picture of the author tudexo
    Did you try recent places? That could have a copy of your autosaved document.
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  • Profile picture of the author agmccall
    If you use the search function in windows, then click documents, then advanced search, you can then type a phrase or sentence from the document.

    al
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    • Profile picture of the author Kay King
      You can also search by date range. That's helped me find things in the past.
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    • Profile picture of the author AnniePot
      Start a new document in Word (enter a few random words), then click:

      File > Save as

      This will open a box indicating where Word saves by default. Make a note of this then take a look via Windows Explorer and see if anything looks familiar or has a date/time-stamp for the document you've lost.
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      • Profile picture of the author gnojham
        Originally Posted by AnniePot View Post

        Start a new document in Word (enter a few random words), then click:

        File > Save as

        This will open a box indicating where Word saves by default. Make a note of this then take a look via Windows Explorer and see if anything looks familiar or has a date/time-stamp for the document you've lost.
        even better, open a word doc from email again and then do save as.should show you exactly where it saved the other. I have to imagine it's in your downloads folder. You may have multiple download folders though. Download a file from email and right click the file on the download bar and choose show in folder to see where is at.
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  • Profile picture of the author tryinhere
    If you opened it in email and edited it there and even with saving it will be gone and i doubt it has been saved any where on the computer / but may be wrong. always need to remove from email or save as to get the saved copy, same goes if you try and edit excel in email it will tell you its saving but wont that I know of.
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  • Profile picture of the author franklindover
    Banned
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    • Profile picture of the author Tyler Pratt
      Cant help you with a Word Doc, but will say this.

      Use Google Docs in the future. You will never have to worry about recovering anything.
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  • The original post was 4 years ago.
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