Are you the one who does all the work, i.e. writing, editing on the Word documents? If yes, you probably have first-hand experience with how painful it is to lose one. Let’s say you spent your previous days organizing and deleting the older versions of the document using the Shift + Delete command. It skips the Recycle Bin and removes the files immediately from your system. Now, imagine you accidentally deleted the recent version of the document instead of an older copy with the Shift + Delete shortcut. Before you even realize what’s just happened, your file will be gone. Losing crucial data can surely be a nightmare for you. Don’t panic! There are several ways available implementing which, you would be able to recover deleted Word document without much hassle.
Reasons Behind Why You End Up Deleting The Word File?
At times, due to accidental deletion or partition formatting, you might end up losing your Microsoft Word document or any other file from your Windows system. However, you can recover the deleted files with the methods listed ahead in this blog. But before you do so, you must get aware of the reasons due to which you lost the file:
- Emptied Recycle Bin: You would have emptied the Recycle Bin, and thus, the Word file would have been deleted permanently.
- No backup copy: You don’t have an offline or cloud backup of your Word file to allow restoration.
- Unsaved Word file: At times, the Word file crashes or closes suddenly without saving your data in it.
- Word file corruption: Your file would have got corrupted due to a system crash, malware, etc.
- Accidental drive formatting: You formatted the partition without copying your file to a secure location.
How To Recover Deleted Word Documents?
Below we have mentioned some of the effective methods following which you would be able to recover deleted Word documents without much trouble:
Method 1: Restore From The Recycle Bin
Applicability: It helps you recover Word files and other documents that you deleted using the Delete key in Windows 10, Windows 8, and older version of Windows.
Whenever you delete a Word Document by pressing the delete key, it goes straight to the Recycle Bin. In Windows systems, such deleted files stay in the Recycle Bin for 30 days and then are removed. If you want to recover such permanently deleted Word files, you require backup or data recovery software. However, to recover deleted Word document from Recycle Bin, you may proceed with the below-given steps:
- Double-click the Recycle Bin icon and search for the deleted Word files in the Recycle Bin.
- When found, right-click on them, and click on the Restore option.
By following the above steps, you’ll be able to restore the Word files from Recycle Bin to their original location on the system.
Method 2: Try Using The Recover Unsaved Document Feature Of Word
Applicability: This method will help you restore unsaved Word documents.
Sometimes, your Word document suddenly closes due to an application or system crash. Due to this, you might end up losing your valuable information. However, every time MS Word starts, it searches for AutoRecover files and shows results in the ‘Document Recovery’ pane. If it doesn’t open, you can search for your files using the Recover Unsaved Document feature as well. For doing so, follow the below-given steps:
- Firstlu, open a new Word Document. From there, go to the File menu and click on Info.
- Then, go to the Manage Document section and select Recover Unsaved Documents.
- Further, click on Recover Unsaved Documents to view all the unsaved Word files on your system.
- It will display the list of Unsaved Documents, and from there, you can select the files you want to restore. And then, click Open.
Note: It will open the temporary Word file with a warning message that states: RECOVERED UNSAVED FILE “This is a recovered file that is temporarily stored on your computer.”
- Lastly, click on Save As and save the word document on your system.
Method 3: Use the AutoRecover Word Feature
Applicability: You can recover unsaved Word documents after a system or application crash.
Microsoft Word comes with an AutoRecover feature that creates an automatic backup of your Word document. It works in the background and saves a temporary copy (.asd file) of your Word file. The application prompts you with an option to recover the auto-saved file and save it on the system, right after you open the Word document. If, due to any reason, you fail to get a system prompt, make sure to follow the below-given steps:
- Open a new Word Document, go to the File menu and click on Options followed by Save.
- Under Save documents, go to the AutoRecover file location.
- Select it and copy the file path mentioned in the AutoRecover file location
- Simultaneously press Windows + E keys to open the File Explorer.
- Further, paste the AutoRecover file location path in the Menu Bar and press the Enter key.
- The unsaved Word file will appear on the screen with the .asd extension. Select and copy the .asd file path that you want to recover.
- Again, open a Word document and go to the File menu> Open> Recover Unsaved Document.
- Make sure to paste the ‘.asd file location path’ in the File name box and click Open.
Note: The temporary Word file will open with a warning message that reads: RECOVERED UNSAVED FILE “This is a recovered .asd file temporarily stored on your computer.”
- At last, click on Save As to save the Word file on the system.
Method 4: Using Windows Data Recovery Software
Applicability: If you deleted a file using the shift + delete command or emptied it from Windows Recycle Bin, this method can help you. You may also recover the files lost due to corruption or drive formatting.
Windows data recovery software provides you with advanced data recovery options to recover your valuable data from any storage media. Using the Stellar data recovery software for Word, you can recover up to 1 GB of deleted Word files for free. Moreover, to recover deleted Word files with this software, you must follow the below-given steps:
- Firstly, you have to download the Stellar Data Recovery Free Edition from their official website.
- Once downloaded, install and run the software.
- On the Home screen, select Office Documents and click on Next.
- Further, select the location from where your Word file was deleted. However, if you aren’t sure of the location, you can select a drive as well.
- Click on Scan to allow the software to scan the storage for the deleted file.
- Once the Scan process completes, preview the recoverable files and click on Recover to save them.
Summing It Up!
We hope the solutions mentioned in this blog will have helped you recover deleted Word documents without much trouble. However, there might be a probability that you would find the above-listed methods a bit complicated to perform independently. If that’s the case, we would suggest you reach out to an expert or give a try to the Stellar Data Recovery Software. It can surely help you recover your lost or deleted Word files at the earliest.