Share via

How do i get back all the 12 documents i saved yesterday. I cannot find any.

HR TAFTA 0 Reputation points
2025-12-03T09:10:00.42+00:00

I worked on 12 word documents yesterday. One of those documents served as the one i was using to edit. I used the "save as" icon and saved them each as soon as i was done editing them. But as soon as i wanted to share with my Boss via mail, i could not find any of the documents, not even one of them. It took me hours to get those documents prepared, they cannot just be missing like that. Please i help immediate help.

I have checked recovery, and all, still no solution.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For business | Windows

2 answers

Sort by: Most helpful
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Tina L 12,330 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator
    2025-12-03T10:08:43.51+00:00

    Hello @HR TAFTA,  

    Thank you for reaching out to the Q&A forum! 

    I truly understand how critical this situation is for you and how much it impacts your work. I also appreciate the effort you’ve put into trying to resolve this issue. 

    I noticed you mentioned checking Recovery, and I just want to confirm if you’ve also tried the Recover Unsaved Documents option in Word, is it correct? 

    User's image

    As AI suggested above, you can review this article carefully to ensure you’ve tried all the steps listed: How to recover unsaved Word documents - Microsoft 365 Apps | Microsoft Learn 

    User's image

    If the documents are not found in any of these locations, I truly regret to say that unfortunately, they may have been corrupted, or the saving process was interrupted before completion.  

    To prevent this in the future, I recommend saving your files directly to OneDrive and double-checking before closing the application. 

    However, if you still need deeper technical assistance and this is a work account managed by your organization, you can ask your IT admin to raise a support ticket with our higher-level technical team to check thoroughly whether your documents can still be recovered: 

       User's image User's image

     

    I hope you understand that this forum has limitations in terms of available tools and testing environments. As a forum moderator, I only can try to do research on the issue and provide guidance based on my experience.     

    I truly hope you’ll be assisted soon by our dedicated technical team. And if you receive any updates or insights, please feel free to reply here.         

    Looking forward to hearing from you! 

    Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread. 

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments

  2. AI answer

    2025-12-03T09:10:13.3066667+00:00

    To recover your missing Word documents, you can try the following steps:

    1. Search for AutoRecover files: Check the following folder locations for backup files:
      • C:\Users\<UserName>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Word
      • C:\Users\<UserName>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Office\UnsavedFiles Replace <UserName> with your actual username.
    2. Check for Word backup files: If you have the "backup copy" option enabled in Word, look for files with a .wbk extension. You can search for these files by entering *.wbk in the Windows search box.
    3. Check the Recycle Bin: If you accidentally deleted the documents, they might still be in the Recycle Bin. Open the Recycle Bin and look for your Word documents.
    4. Restart Word: Sometimes, restarting Word can trigger the AutoRecover feature. Close and reopen Word to see if the Document Recovery pane appears with your missing documents.
    5. Search for temporary files: Temporary files may have a .tmp extension. You can search for these by entering *.tmp in the Windows search box. If you find any relevant files, try opening them in Word.

    If you still cannot find your documents after trying these methods, consider using the Windows File Recovery tool if you are on Windows 10 version 2004 or later, as it can help recover permanently deleted files.

    References:

    AI-generated content may be incorrect. Read our transparency notes for more information.

    Was this answer helpful?

Your answer

Answers can be marked as 'Accepted' by the question author and 'Recommended' by moderators, which helps users know the answer solved the author's problem.