People use Microsoft Word to create text documents and files. But the main thing is, it is not saved automatically. Mostly, people also tend to forget to save the documents they have created.  Sometimes, accidentally our system gets shut down in between our work. That time we will miss the file we have created unless it is saved. So, Here in this article, I will say how to recover the Unsaved word document on Mac.

Solution 1: Recover Word document from the Trash

  • In Mac’s dock, you can see the Trash icon
  • Open the Trash by tapping on it
  • In the trash, you have to search the Word document in the trash.
  • Now tap on Put Back
  • After that find the Word document where it was originally saved.

Solution 2: Recover Unsaved Word Document from Auto Recovery

  • Open the Finder on your Mac
  • In that select Go
  • After that tap on Go to Folder option

And type the following text /Users//Library/Containers/com.Microsoft/Data/Library/Preferences/AutoRecovery

Table of Contents

After that, you can see the containers folder in that scroll down the screen until you see the com.Microsoft.Word

Note: You may need to rename .doc instead of .docx if they won’t open properly in the MS Word app.

Another Method:-

If you can’t find the file in the “Office 2008/09/11 AutoRecovery” folder, use this method.

  • Open Terminal app via /Applications/Utilities/.
  • Type the following command
  • open $TMPDIR
  • Press Enter. It will open the Temporary files folder. Find and open the “Temporaryitems” folder.
  • The lost word document file name looks like “WordWorkfile D-57295.tmp”. Open this file using the “TextEdit” app instead of the Word app. Because MS word app does not open .tmp file type.

Solution 3: Recover Unsaved Word Document from Temporary Folder

  • Go to the Finder, Choose Go -> Go to folder.
  • Type /private/var/folders and find the files named “Word Work File” inside a “Temporary Items” folder.
  • Option-drag folders or files to the Desktop (before dropping them on Microsoft Word’s icon).
  • Do not delete anything.

Note: Some of the Mac users reported “uFlysoft Data Recovery for Mac” is the best one to recover lost word documents.

open $TMPDIR

~/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Word/Data/Library/Preferences/AutoRecovery/

In Older Microsoft Office versions use the Auto recovery folder in a different location:-

/Users/user-name/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Office/Office 2011 AutoRecovery

Note: Replace the user name with the actual user name of your computer. The library folder is hidden in Mac OS X. So Open the terminal app and type the following command to unhide the Library folder. chflags nohidden ~/Library/

Solution 4: Recover the Unsaved Word document using Backup

When you have a Backup it will be very much easy to recover the deleted files so you can do a backup on your Mac and restore the files which have been deleted. And you can also install Mac Backup Software Get Backup Pro

SEE ALSO: MS Office icons missing on OS X Yosemite? Here’s how to fix

Final Verdict:

These steps will surely help you to find the Unsaved Word Document on your Mac. And if you know of any other methods you can mention them in the comments section.