How to recover computer documents that are not saved? Detailed method sharing

When using a computer to edit documents, you often encounter some unexpected situations: such as a sudden system crash, software unresponsive exit, power outage, or accidental operation to close the unsaved document window. So, if the documents on the computer have not been saved in time, are they completely gone? Not necessarily! Next, we will start from multiple aspects and teach you how to retrieve those important unsaved files as much as possible.

1. View the auto-save and document recovery functions

At present, mainstream office software has built-in automatic backup and recovery mechanisms, especially Microsoft Office suites (such as Word, Excel, PPT), etc., which will generate temporary copies in the background at regular intervals.

Take Word as an example:

1. Launch the Word software;
2. Click the “File” menu in the upper left corner → to enter the “Information” page;
3. Look for “Manage Documents” or a similar option, click “Recover Unsaved Documents”;
4. Browse the list to see if there is something you need;
5. Perform “Save As” as soon as you find it to avoid losing it again.

2. Search the temporary folder of the system

If auto-restore doesn’t work, you may want to try manually finding temporary files. Windows often generates hidden cache files when running programs, and although the name is messy, it may contain the content of a document you just edited.

Specific Operation:

1. Open File Explorer;
2. Address bar input %temp% and enter the car to enter the temporary catalog;
3. Sort by “Date modified” and look for it .tmp、.asd or .wbk format of the file;
4. Try opening it in Notepad or Word to see if it’s what you need.

3. With the help of professional data recovery tools

If the first two methods don’t solve the problem, you can consider using professional software – “Data Savior”. It supports deep scanning of data fragments remaining in the hard drive, and can even retrieve document fragments that have never been saved, with a simple and easy-to-understand interface suitable for ordinary users to get started quickly.

1. Click the button above or the blue link to download and install “Data Savior”, and select the disk partition where the document was originally located after running.

2. The software starts to scan the deleted or unsaved file records, you can search by keywords or directly check the target file, click the “Preview” icon (small eye) to check whether the content is correct, and click “Recover” to export after confirming that it is correct.

4. Enable file history or system restore

If you turn on the “File History” feature in Windows 10/11 in advance, you can easily retrieve old versions of documents.

The steps are as follows:

1. Open the folder where the original document is located;
2. Right-click on the blank space → select “Properties”;
3. Switch to the Previous Versions tab;
4. Choose a suitable point in time for recovery.

If this feature is not enabled, you can also try to revert to the state before the document was lost via System Restore Point, but be aware that this will affect the entire system settings and installed software.

5. Develop good document protection habits

While the above methods can help you recover losses at critical moments, they don’t guarantee success every time. Therefore, it is recommended to take precautions:

• Enable the automatic saving function of office software (recommended interval of 1 minute);
• Use shortcuts frequently during editing Ctrl + S；
• Use cloud disk synchronization tools (such as OneDrive, Baidu Netdisk) for automatic backup;
• Regularly copy important documents to a USB flash drive or mobile hard drive;
• Configure an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) to prevent data loss due to sudden power outages.