How to Recover Deleted Word Documents for Free?

It, sometimes, happens that you accidentally delete your Word document or the document gets lost due to various reasons. In such situations, there is no need to panic as there are ways to recover such Word documents. In this post, we’ll be discussing the ways to recover deleted, lost or unsaved documents for free.

इस पोस्ट को हिंदी में पढ़ने के लिए यहां क्लिक करें।

Table of Content

• Situations Where You End Up with Deleted/Unsaved/Lost Word Documents
• How to Recover Deleted/Lost/Unsaved Word Documents?
  • Find and Restore from Auto-Backup File 
  • MS Word Auto Recovery
  • Recover Unsaved Word Files with Document Recovery
• Stellar Data Recovery for Windows to Restore Deleted Word Documents

Get Free Data Recovery Upto 1 GB

The free version of Stellar Data Recovery software for Windows helps in recovering deleted Word documents for free. You can recover up to 1 GB of data absolutely free. It recovers data in three simple steps: SELECT, SCAN and RECOVER. Additionally, it can recover any kind of deleted data – audio files, videos, and more.

[Suggested Reading]: Best Free file recovery for deleted file recovery

Situations Where You End Up with Deleted/Unsaved/Lost Word Documents

1. Accidental deletion and use of the ‘Shift+Del’ key which bypasses the Recycle Bin
2. Formatting of drives
3. System crash or abrupt shutdown
4. Crashing of MS Word application
5. Disk errors.

Know more about Free Data Recovery Tools from Stellar

How to Recover Deleted/Lost/Unsaved Word Documents?

It is always advisable to create a backup of your data. If you have created a backup of your Word documents, you can restore them from the backup. However, if you haven’t created a backup, the first thing to do is check the Recycle Bin folder on your Windows system.

Unless your file has been permanently deleted or overwritten, you will find the deleted Word document in the Recycle Bin. To restore the deleted documents from Recycle Bin, right-click on it and click ‘Restore’ or use the ‘Cut/Paste’ option.

Note: This method works only when you have not deleted the file permanently or emptied the Recycle Bin folder manually.

Read: How To Recover Files Deleted From Recycle Bin?

If the file is not found in the Recycle Bin folder, follow the methods mentioned below.

If the Word document file(s) is crucial, don’t take a risk with hit and trial methods.

Know More: Free Recover Software for Windows 10 to get back your files

Methods to Recover Deleted/Unsaved/Lost Word Document Files

1: Find and Restore from Auto-Backup File

You can find and restore your document by using the Auto-Backup file option in the Word application. However, this process works when you have the backup option enabled on the Microsoft Word application. Here are the steps to restore a Word document, based on your MS Word version:

Word 2010	Word 2007	Word 2002 & Word 2003
Start Word 2010 •Click on the File menu and select Open •In the Files of type list (All Word documents), click All Files •Click the backup file that you found, and then click Open.	Start Word 2007 •Click the Microsoft Office icon at the top left and then choose Open. •In the Files of type list, click All Files •Click the backup file that you found, and then click Open.	Start MS Word •On the File menu, click Open •Point to the arrow in the Files of type box, click All Files *.*, select the backup file, and then click Open

[Tip: If you don’t remember the folder where you stored the backup document. Search for backup files on your system by typing *.wbk files.]

2: MS Word Auto Recovery

When you start working on a Word document, the Microsoft Word application autosave a temporary copy of the document at C:\Users\User.name\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Word\.

You can restore the Word document from the Autosave copy of the original document that disappeared after a computer or Word application crash.

[Note: This is not a foolproof method as you may not find the Autosave file. Even if you find the Autosave file, chances are that the recent changes aren’t updated]. 

[Suggested Reading]: Advanced Free Data Recovery Software for PC

3: Recover Unsaved Word Files with Document Recovery

You can use this method can be used to retrieve Word documents of versions — Microsoft Word 2010, Word 2013, Word 2016, and Word 2019 versions. Here are the steps to recover unsaved files with Document Recovery:

1. Click File
2. Click Manage Versions
3. From the list that appears, click Recover Unsaved Documents.

4. A dialog box displaying unsaved recoverable Word documents will appear.

5. Select the Word document you want to recover and click Open.
6. You can save the document or copy and paste the content in a new Word file.

Also, read Deleted file recovery from PC/Mac/SD cards and RAID Servers.

Stellar Data Recovery for Windows to Restore Deleted Word Documents

A Word file recovery software, such as Stellar Data Recovery for Windows is effective in recovering deleted MS Word documents. The software can recover deleted Word files [.txt, .doc, .rtf, .odt, .xml, .dotx, etc.], created using MS Word 2002, 2003, 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016 and 2019. Follow the steps below to recover permanently deleted Word documents by using Stellar Data Recovery software:

• Install and launch free data recovery software for Windows.

• Select Office Documents from the options. Click

• Choose the location or drive volume from where the Word document was deleted. (The software supports Word document file recovery from both internal and external storage media.)

• Click Scan. After the scan is complete, click File Type in the left pane. Click on the Documents

• Use the search bar in the top right corner to locate the lost documents for recovery.
• If you don’t remember the file name, go to Tree View in the left pane and navigate to the folder location from where the Word file was lost.
• Click on the Word document file and preview the content before saving it.

• Select and click
• Click Browse to choose a save location on a different drive. Click Start Saving.

Watch the video on “How to recover deleted files for Windows?” with the help of Stellar Recovery Software

[Check Here]: How to recover deleted files from the formatted hard drive for free

Conclusion

If you have accidentally deleted or lost a Word document, stop using the storage media or the system from where the document is lost/deleted. It prevents overwriting and increases the chance of successful Word document recovery. You can follow the manual methods mentioned in this post to recover deleted Word files or unsaved Word documents.  However, if the document is important, it is better to use the Stellar Data Recovery software in the first place. The software safely recovers accidentally deleted or lost Word document files from a Windows PC and supported internal or external storage devices. This hard drive recovery software is effective and can retrieve data lost due to accidental deletion, formatting of the drive, or any other situation. The software supports recovery of all types of MS Word documents, created in MS Office version 2002 till 2019.