How To Find AutoSaved Word Documents And Open .asd File Like a Pro
Get your lost/unsaved doc back with autosaved word documents right away.
Last Updated on December 8, 2020 by Ian McEwan
All Methods Here Apply to Microsoft Office Word 2003/2007/2010/2013
For quite some time now, Microsoft Word has provided users with an autosave feature which saves documents being worked on without an express prompt from the user. This has proved very efficient in situations where the computer goes off or crashes when the user has not yet saved their work. However, the question arises as to how one can find these autosaved word documents when they log back into the computer. Moreover, how to open .asd file when you find it.
Normally, you can easily restore your lost word document after a restart. Because a Document Recovery window pane will open up in the Word, and you can choose the latest file from the recoverable document list to resume.
If the Document Recovery doesn’t show up or you’re a Mac user, try the methods below.
Part 1: Effective Ways to Find Autosaved Word Documents On Win/ Mac
- Method 1: Find Autosaved Word Documents From App Data Folder
- Method 2: Recover Autosaved Word Documents With Data Recovery Tool
- Other methods which are worth a shot
Part 2: Why are my AutoSaved Word file in .asd format rather than .doc? How to open .asd file?
Part 1: Effective Ways to Find Autosaved Word Documents On Win/ Mac
Method 1: Find Autosaved Word Documents From App Data Folder on Windows And Mac
For Windows Users:
The default AutoRecover location for the documents that MS Word has autosaved is the App Data folder located in the system partition of the hard disk.
In most computers, this is the partition labeled ‘C’. The path to access this folder is as follows C:\Users\*user name* \AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Word where the *user name* is the name of the user that was logged in at the time when the document was auto-saved.
Or, you can open an Explorer window and paste %AppData%\Microsoft\Word into the address bar and press Enter.
It is important to note that the App Data folder is normally hidden. Therefore, the user would have to first of all show hidden folders in the control panel to be able to view it.
Learn how to open .asd file here.
For Mac users:
Like Word for Windows, Microsoft Word for Mac has document recovery feature, which is AutoRecovery, to prevent users from losing unsaved progress in a document, if either MS Word or the Mac are shut down(crash) unexpectedly.
Find the autosaved file on mac to recover unsaved/lost word document, all you need to do is to locate the AutoRecovery folder:
- Quit Word for Mac and Open Finder, then click “Go” > “Go to Folder”.
- Copy and paste “~/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Word/Data/Library/Preferences/AutoRecovery” and click “Go” to open the AutoRecovery folder
- There, all the files, which start with the words “AutoRecovery save of”, are what you looking for.
Simply select the most related one and change the filename extension to “.doc”.
Method 2: Recover Autosaved Word Documents With Data Recovery Tool On Windows And Mac
In some situations, it might prove difficult to find the important documents even after following the methods above.
So, to speed the process of finding autosaved doc or recover deleted word document, using an ideal Data Recovery tool will be a must.
One thing Data Recover can do is quickly locate your autosaved word file with its quick scan mode.
No need to find the folder on your own or any other aforementioned steps. It should offer a little extra peace of mind.
- Just download the free trial and have it run on your Win/Mac, then press Scan.
- With any luck, it will show you the autosaved/lost file in a minute. If it doesn’t, use the “Deep Scan” or “All-Around Recovery” function.
- Chance are all your files, such as Videos, Images, Audios or Email, etc., which were permanently deleted or lost recently, can be recovered with the data recovery tool. But you can speed up the deep-scanning by selecting the file type first or using the Filter button.
- After deep scan, you can preview the word document and click “Recover” to save it.
Since the usages of all data recovery software are pretty much the same, here are top 4 Data Recovery software (Win and Mac) in 2020 for you to choose from.
- #1 Aiseesoft Data RecoveryAiseesoft Data Recovery
- #2 Stellar Data RecoveryStellar Data Recovery
- #3 Wondershare RecoveritWondershare Recoverit
- #4 EaseUs Data Recovery WizardEaseUs Data Recovery Wizard
Other Methods Which Are Worth a Shot
Checking the Initial Save Directory For Word Backup Files
There are times when the autosave file is saved in the directory where the original document was saved, in case changes were being made to it.
To open this document, you would first have to launch MS Word, then go to File, then click Open. (If you are word 2013 user, you need to click Computer and Browse after that.) Then go to the directory where the original document was saved.
Ensure that you have changed the file type ‘All Word Documents‘ to ‘All Files‘ from the dropdown menu. You will be able to identify the file as it will have ‘Back up of‘ in its name.
Use “Recover Unsaved Documents” Feature
In situations where one’s computer unexpectedly shuts down or crashes, there is always a chance that they can recover their unsaved documents.
For Word 2010 user: The first step would be to reopen MS Word then go to File, then select Recent, then Recover Unsaved Documents.
For Word 2013 user: Go to File >Open > Recent Documents and click Recover Unsaved Documents at the end of all Recent Document.
There you can find autosaved word documents and can, therefore, select the file you need to open. It is highly advisable to save the document immediately after recovering it to avoid the inconvenience of having to look for it again.
Manual Searching
The next possible step would be to manually search the computer for files with the .asd or .wbk extensions.
These files are backup copies of MS Word documents. This search can be done by first opening the Windows Explorer by pressing the Windows button and letter E at the same time, then typing .asd or .wbk in the search box at the top right corner of the window.
You can then right click the file found and click on the ‘show file location’ option. The folder containing the autosaved files will open up. Another kind of files to search for is those with the .tmp file extension. However, not all .tmp files are necessarily related to word documents.
Those related to MS Word look like the following: ~wrdxxxx.tmp, ~wrfxxxx.tmp or~waxxxx.tmp where the xxxx part represents a series of four numbers assigned to the files.
The above methods have proven to be very effective when one wants to try to find autosaved word documents and should, therefore, be tried out in the event of loss of unsaved work.
Part 2: Why Are My AutoSaved Word File in .asd Format Rather Than .doc? How to open a .asd file?
Now that you have found your AutoSaved word document.
But the head-scratching part of Microsoft Word AutoRecover feature is that the autosaved word format is in .asd rather than .doc.
And you can’t even open it if the autosaved file is not in the Recovery folder.
However, if someone told you “Files with the file extension .asd can only be launched by certain applications.” don’t trust them.
You just need to follow the step below:
- Go to the Recovery folder as below.
C:\Users\*your user name*\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Word
- Drag your .asd file into this folder and create a new word document.
- Open the new doc, go to File > Info > Manage Document
- Click Recover Unsaved Documents.
- Select your .asd file and click open. Done!
Part 3: Setup AutoRecover
The Best Rule Of Thumb is To Save Often and you can leave it to the AutoRecover.
To configure AutoRecover:
- Open your Microsoft Word file and click File > Options >Save.
- Then select the box before Save AutoRecover information every _ Minutes and box before Keep the last autosaved version if I close without saving.
- Set the autosave duration to 1 min.
Related Articles:
Accidentally Saved Over a Word Document on Mac. Can I Recover it?