My Word normal.dotm was replaced and I don't see how to restore my old version

Funny thing happened to me on the away to the coliseum...

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This morning the same thing happened to me. Sigh ...

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But I got lucky.

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Like you, Word asked me to save normal.dotm, I said no because I had did not recall making any recent changes I wanted to keep. When I restarted Word I found my customizations gone. Normal.dotm had today's date, oops!

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I Looked in recycle bin, nothing recent. Then I did a file name search (using "everything" search tool). I got lucky and searched for "Normal" instead of "Normal.DOTM".

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One of the results was "Backup of Normal.WBK" dated a couple of weeks ago in the templates folder just above the new normal.dotm. It is a reasonable date for last changes I would have saved. Not what I expected. But, just for the halibut I tried renaming it NORMAL.DOTM

Tada!

Everything was back. Yay!

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So take a look in your templates folder. You may also get lucky.

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For me, 2 takeaway lessons:

• Always save normal.dotm when prompted, just give it a temp name, then test to see which copy you want to keep
• If you lose your normal.dotm, look for "Backup of Normal.WBK"

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Find Normal.DOTM

Make sure all Word sessions are closed

Method 1

In File Explorer a shortcut to navigate to the template folder

• copy and paste the folder path %AppData%\Microsoft\Templates into the Address box, and press the Enter key

Method 2

In Word look in File menu > Options command > Advanced option > General section > File Locations button > User Templates location.
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Method 3

In Word,

.  * press Alt+F11; the Visual Basic Editor opens.

.  * Press Ctrl+G to activate the Immediate window.

.  * In that window, type (or paste)

     NormalTemplate.OpenAsDocument

and press Enter.
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Method 4

• http://www.addbalance.com/word/normaltemplate.htm
• http://addbalance.com/word/normaltemplate.htm#Find

This will not help your current situation but for future reference...

1. Like Doug, I keep most of my modifications in separate Global templates. See Moving (Sharing) Customizations in Microsoft Word.
2. Whenever I make any changes to the Normal template, I use a macro that saves a date-stamped backup. Backup Normal.dotm template using a macro Every once in a while, I go in and delete most of the backups. This has saved me tons of work more than once and gives me more confidence in the stability of my system.

messages when I shut down my machine and I didn't pay much attention to it. I thought it said something like "Do you want to save changes to your Word Template," or something like that.

Yes that message will pop up periodically when you are closing Word. If you have multiple copies of Word open and happen to make a setting change that is saved in NORMAL.DOTM, when you close the session with the change you may see this message. If you remember what the likely change was you can say yes. If no other Word sessions have a lock on normal.dotm, the change will be saved. If there is a lock, you'll be prompted to save with a new name. You can then look at the 2 normal.dotms and decide which to keep.

Usually I say NO to the prompt if I didnt' explicitly make a change I wanted to keep.

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I SUSPECT this what happened:

I've never tested to see if it works this way, but I have noticed that in some situations Word will start without my customizations. I just never pay attention to what caused the problem.

If you start Word in a different way, ie opening attachment directly from Outlook, or maybe from the internet, Word starts "clean". It does not actually use your normal.dotm. So then, if you make a change that needs to be saved, it would be using the generated, "blank", normal.dotm. If you saved that, your old changes would be wiped.

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I suspect you are TARFU.

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At this point your best bet is to find an "Undelete" tool on the internet. I haven't used on recently, but have tested some in the past.

Background:

When Windows "deletes" a file, it does not wipe it from the HD. It just marks the relevant entry in the "FAT" (or NTFS) as "deleted". The parts ("Sectors) of the file still exists on the HD, waiting to be re-assigned to another file when needed.

Back to "Undelete" Tools ...

An "undelete" tool reads the space on your drive that is marked as "unused", looking for parts of files and "rebuilds" the chains of sectors that made up the deleted files. Depending on where the deleted file was saved, and how much file save activity there has been on your computer, you may not have overwritten the deleted file yet. The undelete tool will give you the option to pick which files you want to recover.

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A few years ago I tested an Undelete tool was specific for Office File types. After a (long) scan period it listed a bunch of files, some going back a COUPLE OF YEARS that it thought it could recover.

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Search the internet for "File Undelete Tool". If any specialize in Office files, try them first.

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You may get lucky and recover the file.

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After you recover or recreate your normal.dotm it is time to adopt a backup strategy. Ideally, you should copy the file to another location. But I also "cheat". When I get the "file in use" message, I save the normal.dotm with a temp name. Then I go to the folder containing normal.dotm and make a backup copy of the current one, and rename the new temp name to normal.dotm..

What I like to do is add a date to the end of file name, ie

Normal.DOTM is current

Normal 2022 02 09.dotm

Normal 2022 01 01.Dotm

Normal 2021 09 01.dotm

etc

This way I have several backup versions of the file I can recover to. Eventually I get rid of the oldest, or unwanted, ones to free up space.

As the Normal.dotm template can unfortunately be replaced for various reasons, it is best to create macros in a macro-enabled template that you save into the Word Startup folder so that it is loaded as an Add-in, which will make the macros available for use in all documents. In addition, I would also set up the styles, etc. that you want to use in another template (*.dotx) that you save in the Templates folder and then use File>New and select that template when you want to create a document in which you want to use those styles. To facilitate creating documents from that template, add the New Document or Template command to the Quick Access Toolbar. Using that command, which you will find in the All Commands category, will take you directly to the classic New dialog that shows the contents of the Templates folder.

Hi RobertMcNm,

First, my pleasure to assist you.

As per your description, please don’t worry, we can work together to narrow down and resolve the situation.

If Normal.dotm is damaged/ moved, Word automatically creates a new version (which uses the original default settings). And I'm afrid the new version will not include any of the customizations that you made to the version.

 Howevey, I found similar thread you may refer and see if its help: How can I restore my Normal.dotm file to a previous version

I appreciate your understanding and stay safe!!

Best regards

Waqas Muhammad