Finding/opening Word Document: "This document is either deleted or not currently accessible."

Question

A friend sent me a template of a document through a e-mail attachment. I opened the attachment in word and made substantial editing. I saved the document, but it is nowhere to be found anywhere on my macbook. I checked outlook temp, private folders... etc. However, the document does show up in the "recent" tab of word when I go to open a new document. When I click to open it, it reads "This document is either deleted or not currently accessible." Moreover, the document name has been changed from the original template that was emailed to me-- reassuring that I did change the name and save the document. I know that I did not find and delete the document at any point. Any help to locate and open this document would be greatly appreciated!

Under the document name in the "recent" tab in word, it reads: /private/var/folders....  I have followed the progression of folders that it says, but no luck finding it in the finder app. The only documents that I am able to open from the recent tab start with "Macintosh HD"

Thanks!

Kevin

Answer 1

Since updates are coming out, I would install updates then test again. I would also be inclined to use File > Save As instead of Save until I was sure this issue is behind us.

Make sure your Mac has a working internet connection before checking for updates. Install Mac OS X updates followed by Office updates.

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Install Mac OS X updates first:

To get Mac OS updates, go to the App store on your dock, and then click the Updates button to reveal available updates.

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Then Install Office Updates

To get the update:

1. Open any Office application
2. Go to the Help menu and choose Check for Updates
3. Let AutoUpdate check for and install updates

Restart your Mac

Answer 2

Thanks for your reply. I should have been clearer about what happened.

In my case (unlike the other poster), I hadn't downloaded the file. It was a Word file that I'd been working on for a considerable amount of time. As such, the file was named, and saved in a folder. I regularly save as I work too.

The problem has happened twice now.

Both times I saw that the file was renamed to something like 'work word file d_4'. That wasn't what I'd saved it as. This seemed odd to me.

So I would save the file AGAIN.

In both instances, after the save, I'd look and found that the file would completely disappear from the folder. It also would not come up in any spotlight searches. It just vanished. I checked for both the original file name and the one that magically appeared.

However, I would see the original file name under the Word tab, recent files. When I would attempt to open it, I'd see the same message as the original poster: "This document is either deleted or not currently accessible."

Older versions of the document which appeared in spotlight would open and show zero text, 0 kbs.

This problem is beyond odd. It's also frustrating to express because everyone seems to think I failed to save or did something on my part to cause this, as evidenced by your response as well as the other reply to the original poster. I've never experienced it prior to a few days ago. I just want to identify the problem and ensure that it doesn't happen again.

(Luckily the second this happened I'd copied and pasted all of the text into a completely new file and emailed it to myself as a backup.)

Answer 3

The 'fix' is to take care to save the document to the folder you want to keep it in; better still, save the attachment to that folder before opening the document from that folder.

As for the cause, all you achieve by editing a document attached to an email is to edit a temporary copy that gets deleted when you exit the email application, even if you used 'save' to retain any edits; even re-opening the edited document before you exit the email application is problematic.

Answer 4

The same thing happened to me. Did you find any fixes? Or what caused this?

Answer 5

It is not possible to change a document that is an attachment. Office makes you save it elsewhere after you make changes. From the sounds of things, you edited the document, then forced quit Word without actually saving the revised document anywhere.

If Word does not automatically recover the document when you open Word from the Dock icon, chances are that no temporary version exists to recover, as it appears you didn't save it anywhere.

If the revised document exists, use Spotlight to find it.

Mac Basics: Spotlight helps you find what ... - Apple Support