No saved changes

Question

Auto save was saving my word document every 10 minutes, and then an hour later everything deleted and I no longer have the last 1100 words of the document. It says no unsaved changes were recorded and version history says nothing in that one hour gap. How do I get my version back? Undo button isn't working either

Answer 1

For future use, see https://www.gmayor.com/automatically_backup.htm.

Answer 2

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but automatic saves will only work if you are making use of OneDrive.

If you are saving locally, the "Save AutoRecover information every X minutes" at File > Options > Save will only serve as basic backup if Word has crashed. For example, a computer restart following an update for the operating system will not count as a crash.

You can try searching for .asd files that may be left behind. See if you can open them in Word, via File > Open > Browse.

Answer 3

Follow these steps in order; stop when the lost work is found.

1. Check Word’s AutoRecover / “Recover Unsaved Documents”
   Since AutoSave/AutoRecover saves every few minutes, there may be an AutoRecover copy even if Version History shows a gap.
   1. Open Word.
   2. Open the document (or any document).
   3. Select File > Info.
   4. Under Manage Document, look for a file labeled (when I closed without saving) and select it.
   5. If it opens with the missing content, select Restore to overwrite the current file.
   If nothing appears there:
   1. Go to File > Info > Manage Document > Recover Unsaved Documents.
   2. Select any candidate file and choose Open.
   3. If it contains the missing text, immediately use Save As to save it.
2. Use Document Recovery (if Word crashed or closed unexpectedly)
   If Word or Windows crashed during that hour, the next time Word opens it should show the Document Recovery pane automatically with “Available Files.”
   • Open each file listed and check for the missing 1100 words.
   • Keep the one with the most recent changes and save it.
   • Delete only the recovered files that are clearly not needed.
3. If the file is stored in OneDrive or SharePoint
   If the document is in OneDrive/SharePoint (including Word for the web):
   • Check the Recycle Bin in OneDrive/SharePoint in case an older copy was deleted.
   • If the whole document was deleted and then recreated, use the OneDrive/SharePoint restore options described in the references to recover deleted files or earlier states of the library.
4. If the file is local and nothing above works
   If the document is stored only on the local drive and:
   • Version History shows no versions in that hour, and
   • Manage Document / Recover Unsaved Documents shows no useful AutoRecover file,
     then Word has no recorded version of those 1100 words.
   In that case, the only remaining option from the provided material is a file-level recovery tool on Windows 10 or later:
   • Install and run Windows File Recovery from Microsoft Store to attempt recovery of an earlier copy of the .docx file from disk.
   • This can sometimes recover permanently deleted or overwritten files, but success is not guaranteed.

Going forward, keep AutoSave and AutoRecover turned on and set the AutoRecover interval to 5 minutes or less (File > Options > Save) to minimize data loss if something similar happens again.

---

References:

• How to recover unsaved Word documents
• Recover an earlier version of a Word file
• Recover your Word files and documents
• What is AutoSave?
• Turn on autosave in Microsoft 365 apps