Word Recovery: How to Recover Deleted Word Document? – 3 Methods
Last Updated on January 13, 2023 by Becky
When you were working with a document to be pasted into a larger file and somehow lost it. The only reason you can think of is that you either deleted it by mistake or closed it unsaved. However, how can you recover word document later?
Sometimes, we also lose our Word/PowerPoint/Excel files because the computer suddenly lost power or experienced a temporary failure or virus infecting. In such cases, we are really anxious since those lost files are absolutely important to us.
So, how to face these annoying situations?
As follows, here is a specific instruction about how to recover deleted word document. (Apply to Word 2007/2010/2013/2016/2019)
Method 1. Recovering Deleted Word Documents From Recycle Bin.
If you just accidentally delete your doc with other files, you’d better immediately look into your recycle bin to see if it is still there. In general, the deleted word docs would be stored at the Recycle Bin for a while, you may get it back from the recycle bin ASAP.
If you shift delete those word docs, and you haven’t backed up yet, you might already empty it from the recycle bin. However, Shift delete just bypasses the recycle bin and doesn’t actually delete those docs permanently, just marks it as usable space by the OS. In that case, the word doc may still in your hard drive. As long as you didn’t overwrite or clean-up your disc, you can find it back by following the third method below.
Method 2. Recover Your Word Document with Auto-Recovering.
Apparently, you can’t count on Recycle Bin each time, because it does not always work, and you might have shift deleted some files by mistake or for some other reasons.
Once you can’t find some documents that you’re sure you haven’t deleted, you’d better try the automatic recovery function on your word office first.
Whether it’s a computer system or a version of word office, if your system just crashes or suddenly switches off while you are using, there shall be an automatic recovery function on your word office 2007 or 2013 to restore your unsaved files.
Here is the specific flow about how to find the location of auto-recovery and retrieve the word docs which were auto-saved:
- Open the Word on your Windows or Mac
- Select Word Options. Choose Save in the left pane.
- Look for a file path to see where the auto-saved document is going, select and copy In my case, it is in here: C:\Users\Becky\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Word\.
- Open the file explorer and paste the copied file path. Press enter to navigate to it.
- Click the Resume to open the file which saved last time.
- Go retrieving the word docs.
Tips: once you get those files back, amending the “Save auto-recovery information interval” to shorter, and ticking the “keep the last auto-recovered version if I close without saving” might be a safer choice.
If you are lucky enough to recover files through this auto-recovery feature, congratulations. If not, and you can remember you have actually deleted these files, then don’t worry, there are still ways to recover your deleted word documents.
Method 3. Recover Deleted Word Documents with Aiseesoft Data Recovery Tool on Windows and Mac.
Not every word doc can be fortunately reserved and auto-recovered or backed up each time, sometimes those files may have been broken or corrupted, and you cannot find it anywhere.
Well, don’t panic, Getting an Aiseesoft Data Recovery would do you a great favor.
Aiseesoft Data Recovery is a professional data recovering software, which can help you recover the deleted/lost files from computer, recycle bin, hard drive, memory card, digital camera and more with ease. Whether the data loss is caused by accidental deletion, emptying recycle bin, RAW hard drive, RAW partition, partition loss, operating system crashed, bootable problems or other reasons, you can easily find them back with this powerful data recovery tool.
Following this Guide to Recover Deleted Word Documents from Windows:
Step 1: Download Aiseesoft Data Recovery, install and run it on your computer.
Step 2: Once you enter the main interface, you are able to select the data type(s) you need to recover, and then choose the disk drive(s) or specific location of your lost word docs.
Any forms of deleted word documents, Excel, images, emails, or any others can be easily recovered with this Aiseesoft Data Recovery.
Step 3: Click “Scan” and you will get a quick scan on the chosen disk drive.
Step 4: After scanning, all the deleted or lost word docs would be listed in your Program interface. The “Filter” feature can help you easily to locate the word docs you want to recover.
Note: When you can’t find the needed documents, you can click “Deep Scan”. Deep Scan may take you more time to finish this whole scanning process, but it can give you more choices of results that can be restored.
Step 5: One last click on “Recover”, you can get all your selected word docs back with ease.
Also, there is a more detailed and specialized way to recover deleted word docs on Mac:
Step 1: Free download > Install > Launch
Step 2: Disable System Integrity Protection > Operate Aiseesoft Data Recovery.
Step 3: Select the data types > Scan the disk drive > Tick your Mac drive. Click “Scan” to quickly scan on your Mac.
Step 4:
- Click the basic data types on the left pane
- Preview the data details on the right window
- Tick the files you needed and click “Recover”.
Select “Path List” to locate what you want mostly and exactly.
Well, if you couldn’t find the data you need to recover, just click “Deep Scan” to take more time on getting the Mac data a more thorough and complete scan.