Summary
In this article, you will learn 4 effective ways to recover unsaved, lost and deleted Word document on Mac with detailed steps: [1]recover with AutoRecovery; [2]Recover from Temp folder; [3]Recover from Recovered item in Trash; [4]recover with Word file recovery software.
Accidentally closed Word without saving on Mac? Do you know how to recover unsaved Word documents on Mac? According to the unique features of Microsoft Word for Mac, you may find the unsaved item in the AutoRecovery folder, Temporary folder or Recovered item in Trash. Besides, if you unintentionally lost, deleted or formatted your Word document, you can recover a Word document on Mac with EaseUS Word file recovery software.
- Nov 25, 2009 No worries, thanks for your reply. Within the Microsoft Office for Mac 2008 version of Word, there is a feature which can auto-recover any documents you create in Word, which will usually auto-save your documents while you are working on them.
- HKEYCURRENTUSER Software Microsoft Office 12.0 Word Data 1. Click Data, and then click Export on the File menu. Name the file Wddata.reg, and then save the file to the desktop. Click Delete on the Edit menu, and then click Yes. Exit Registry Editor. If Word starts and works correctly, you have resolved the problem.
- I get the spinning wheel of death in word for mac 2016, version 16.16.14, and I'm using mojave. Technician's Assistant: Have you tried a Force Quit on your frozen Mac (pressing and holding Option, Command, and Escape)? I can't work on or save documents when its frozen so I need to stop that from happening.
- A spinning wheel is encircling a word document - actually a job application I've spent the last couple of hours doing. I hate the thought of losing it, as the deadline is tomorrow morning. Have a Mac but have MS installed and doing this in word.
Workable Solutions | Step-by-step Troubleshooting |
---|---|
Recover Unsaved Word Document | #1. Recover from the AutoRecovery folder..Full steps #2. Recover from the TMP folder..Full steps #3. Recover from the Recover item in Trash..Full steps |
Recover Deleted Word Document | #4. Recover with Word file recovery software..Full steps |
How to Recover Unsaved Word Document on Mac
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Embedded with more useful features in certain collaborative situations than Pages, Microsoft Word becomes increasingly popular among Mac computers. Office 365 even allows users to create Word files on their Mac. On one hand, Microsoft Word offers standard DOC or DOCX file formats that are compatible in almost every OS platform; On the other hand, Word 2020, 2019, 2018..2011 is featured with auto-saving, which enables us to recover a Word document before we could hit Save.
Based on the features of Microsoft Word for Mac, there are three potential ways to recover your unsaved Word documents. These methods can also be applied to recover unsaved Excel files on your Mac.
#1. Recover Unsaved Word Docs on Mac with AutoRecovery
The Word for Mac includes an AutoRecovery option. It is turned on by default. The app will automatically save a copy of an open Word file every 10 minutes. If Word freezes while you're working on a document, or if the computer crashes, you can use the AutoRecovery copy to recover unsaved Word document with the changes or additions that you made in your last Word for Mac session.
Guide: How to recover an unsaved Word document
Unlike recovering unsaved Word document in Windows, the file recovery on Mac from the AutoRecovery folder is different.
Step 1. Open 'Finder' on your Mac, then head to 'Go' > 'Go to Folder'.
Step 2. Type: ~/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Word/Data/Library/Preferences/AutoRecovery and click 'Go'.
Step 3. Open the AutoRecovery folder, locate all the files that start with the words 'AutoRecovery save of'. Select the one you want to recover, rename the file, then add the '.doc' filename extension.
Step 4. Double-click the file. The document now opens in Word for Mac.
Step 5. Click the File menu and select 'Save As'. Type a new name for the file into the Name field, select a folder for the file and click the 'Save' button.
#2. Recover Unsaved Word Documents on Mac from TMP Folder
The Word for Mac saves a copy of the unsaved document named as Word Work File in the Temporary folder. Your Mac also temporarily keep files in this folder. Though for many Mac users, it's not easy to find it.
Guide: How to recover an unsaved Word document on Mac
Step 1. Go to 'Applications' > 'Utilities' and double-click 'Terminal'.
Step 2. In Terminal, enter open $TMPDIR and you will be directed to the TMP folder which is used to keep files temporarily.
![Document Document](https://cdn.osxdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/howto-always-show-scroll-bars-mac-os-x.jpg)
Step 3. In the TMP folder, find and open the folder named 'TemporaryItems'. In it, right-click the desired unsaved Word files and 'Open with..' Microsoft Word.
Step 4. Save the Word file by clicking on 'File' > 'Save As' and save it to another location.
#3. Recover Unsaved Word Document on Mac from Recovered Item
The Word for Mac temporarily saves documents that the user has not yet saved themselves in a folder named 'Recovered items', located in the Trash. If there are no recovered files, this folder will not appear.
Guide: How to find unsaved Word files on Mac
Step 1. Open 'Trash' by clicking its icon on the dock.
Ravenfield for mac. Step 2. Look for a folder labeled 'Recovered items' and click into it to look for your unsaved Word file. If you cannot find it, try the next solution.
#4. Recover Deleted Word Document with Word Recovery Software
The aforementioned three ways are exclusively for saving the file you're currently working on but suddenly disappear before clicking the Save button. To be specific, the methods will only work for files that are in the process of being worked on when they disappeared. Hence, if you lost a Word doc that is already existed by deletion, disk formatting or losing its access, you need to turn to other ways to recover a Word document on Mac.
EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac is third-party specialized Mac data recovery software that can scour your hard drive, external hard drive, SD card, or USB flash drive to find all the lost data that vanishes without a trace on Mac OS X/macOS. It doesn't matter whether you emptied the trash bin or not, the deleted file will show up after you use the program to scan your selected drive.
For the first attempt, we strongly recommend you download its free version. It won't cost you a penny to search for your missing files. And since your problem is only for a few lost Word files, the 2GB recovery limit should be more than enough. The scan & recovery process is very simple, we’ll show you how it works.
Guide: How to recover a Word document on Mac
Step 1. Select the location where your important Word documents were lost and click Scan button.
Step 2. EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac will start immediately a quick scan as well as a deep scan on your selected disk volume. Meanwhile, the scanning results will be presented in the left pane.
Step 3. By Path and Type, you can quickly filter the Word files you've lost earlier. Select the target files and click Recover Now button to get them back at once.
How to Increase the Chance of Unsaved Word Data Recovery
After suffering from the fear of losing your Word documents, you must not want to experience this kind of situation again. Thus, it's necessary for you to know how to avoid losing your Word files. To avoid completely losing your files, you can:
Tip 1. Save the Word Document Whenever You Create a New One
An ever unsaved Word document exists in the computer's RAM, not on the hard disk. Thus, the chances to save a Word Document that has never been saved before are slim. Knowing this should give you a hint that you should save the word document at least once whenever you create a new one.
Tip 2. Change the AutoSave Interval
After you save your Word document, the AutoSave feature will begin to work. To minimize the loss of the progress on the file you are working, you can change the frequency of AutoSave:
Step 1. Open Microsoft Word on your Mac.
Step 2. Go to 'Word' > 'Preferences' and click 'Save' under Output and Sharing.
Step 3. Check all the items under Save Options (Recommended) and change the interval of AutoSave, for example, from every 10 minutes to every 5 minutes.
If you follow the two tips above, you will substantially decrease the risk of losing your Word documents. What if you carelessly deleted your important Word files on your Mac? No worry. Try the free method to retrieve permanently deleted Word documents with EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac.
macOS Catalina has been a problem for some users who have experienced Mail issues after the upgrade. Some users who use Microsoft Outlook as their Mail client have seen that their outlook app simply freezes or is very slow to respond on macOS Catalina.
This issue is more likely related to a particular property of Outlook as opposed to macOS Catalina. We have seen this issue happen in prior macOS instances such as High Sierra.
Related:
When Outlook is trying to preview folders with encrypted emails, this issue pops up and causes your Outlook to freeze and not respond.
Most of the times, Microsoft Office folks release updates that can handle this problem and other Outlook issues.
Before you attempt at troubleshooting this issue, you may first want to update the latest Outlook install on your Mac running Catalina.
On the Top menu of Outlook, Click on Help > Check for Updates. Update to the latest software from here.
Fix Outlook Freezing issue on macOS Catalina
Once you have applied the latest Outlook updates to your Mac, you can fix any Outlook freezing issues on macOS Catalina with the help of these steps below:
- Open the Terminal App on your Mac ( App is available in the Utilities Folder and can also be located via the LaunchPad on your dock)
- Type in ‘defaults write com.microsoft.Outlook DisablePreviewForSMIME 1’ without the quotes and press enter
- Next, type in ‘kill all cfprefsd’ without the quotes and press Enter
- Exit out of Outlook
- Restart your MacBook
- Open Outlook and check if the freezing issues have been resolved
Microsoft Word For Mac Spinning Wheel Save Documents
Microsoft Outlook also offers an Outlook Reset Preferences tool that you can utilities to reset your outlook.
Other Microsoft Office related issues on macOS Catalina
If you are noticing other performance issues with Microsoft products such as Word, please make sure that you are using the 64 bit version of Word. Check if the version of Word is 16.29 and above.Version 16.30 was made available by Microsoft on Oct 10 (last week) to address some Catalina related issues. This should help with any Outlook crashing issues on your MacBook. Utorrent 2.2.1 portable.
Check and make sure that you have updated to the latest by launching Autoupdate.
That will confirm that you are on the 64 bit version of Office. According to Microsoft, Mac OS Catalina is compatible with Microsoft Office version 16.16.14.
After updating to the 64 bit version, some users realize that they can open and read Microsoft word documents but are unable to edit it. This annoyance along with other Office related problems can be usually fixed by running a Disk Repair on your MacBook.
Microsoft Word For Macbook
Please feel to reach out to Microsoft support if you are encountering other serious issues such as missing files and folders after the update and they should be able to help you with the issues.
Obsessed with tech since the early arrival of A/UX on Apple, Sudz (SK) is responsible for the editorial direction of AppleToolBox. He is based out of Los Angeles, CA.
Sudz specializes in covering all things macOS, having reviewed dozens of OS X and macOS developments over the years.
In a former life, Sudz worked helping Fortune 100 companies with their technology and business transformation aspirations.