How to recover a deleted document

Dear @MacKenzie A Wyant,

Thank you for posting your question in the Microsoft Q&A forum.

Based on your description, you accidentally deleted a 9‑page document and cannot find it in the Recycle Bin or Recently Deleted folder.

Here are some suggestions you can try:

Check AutoRecover in Microsoft Word

Word often saves temporary backups:

Open Word > File > Info > Manage Document > Recover Unsaved Documents. Look for .asd files in:

C:\Users\<YourUserName>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Word

If found, open and save the file.

Search for Backup Copies

If you enabled “Always create backup copy” in Word:

• Search for files with .wbk extension on your PC.
• These are Word backup files that may contain your essay.

Restore Previous Versions (Windows)

If you were working in a folder on your PC:

• Right-click the folder > Restore previous versions.
• Select a version from before deletion and click Restore.

Check OneDrive or Cloud Storage

If your document was synced to OneDrive:

• Go to https://onedrive.live.com/ and restore the file. (if you 're using personal account)
• For education accounts, OneDrive keeps deleted files for 93 days (including second-stage recycle bin), contact to IT/admin of your school to ask them to restore deleted files

For more detail information, you can refer to this article How to recover unsaved Word documents

I hope information above helpful, if you have any other questions, please feel free to reach out.

If the answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment".

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.