How to Recover Unsaved Word Document

Ever closed a document without saving it? It often leaves you wondering how to recover unsaved word document as not many people know that they could recover their unsaved word documents without using any third party tools. Microsoft Word autosaves the unsaved word file on temporary locations and your file could be recovered from there, here’s how:

For Windows XP:

C:\Documents and Settings\{username}\Application Data\Microsoft\Word

C:\Documents and Settings\{username}\Local Settings\Temp

For Windows Vista or Windows 7:

C:\Users\{username}\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Office\UnsavedFiles

You’ll find an ASD file there, you could open it in Microsoft Word and it will show you the document that you closed without saving. Some data may get missing from the document but it is better to have it rather than not being able to recover at all.
It is also recommended to enable options to create backup and autosave the document in Microsoft Word. Backup file is created with .wbk extension. To configure this, follow given steps:

• Go to Word Options
• Click the “Advanced” Tab
• Under the “Save” section, you’ll find “Always create backup copy”. Its unhecked by default, check it.

Now Microsoft Word will create a backup copy and you’ll not have to refer to temporary file locations every time you close a word document without saving it.