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A lost or deleted Microsoft Word document does not always disappear from your PC permanently. Whether your Word file was deleted, became corrupt, or disappeared after a system crash, some recovery methods can help you to restore your document. Go through these reliable solutions to recover your Word file quickly.
To recover Microsoft Word document, follow these methods:
- Recover the deleted file from the Recycle Bin.
- Restore the document from Word backup files (.wbk).
- Recover Word document from Temporary Files.
- Repair and recover data from a corrupt Word document with Word Repair Tool.
It can be very frustrating for Word users to lose their crucial data. But don’t worry! The latest versions of MS Word offer an inbuilt AutoRecover feature, which means if your MS Word closes unexpectedly without saving the file, then you can find the file with the unsaved data and restore it easily.
Why do users need to recover a Word document?
- After you accidentally delete an important Word document.
- When your system shuts down before you save recent changes.
- If Microsoft Word closes unexpectedly during your work.
- When your hard drive or storage device shows errors.
- After a virus or malware attack affects your Word file.
- Because Word document corruption prevents the file from opening.
How to recover Word document?
There are multiple solutions over internet to recover a Word document. Here, we have listed the 4 effective solutions that you can try.
Method 1: Recover Word file from Recycle Bin
If you’ve accidentally deleted a Word file on your computer, then it can be found in the Recycle Bin. So, you can easily recover your Word file from recycle bin and access its data without facing any issue.
How to recover Word file from Recycle Bin?
Step 1: Open the Recycle Bin in your System.
Step 2: Left click on your Word file and click on Restore.
Method 2: Recover a Word document from Word Backup Files
Microsoft Word 2007 and later versions come with an additional feature to save a backup of all your previous work documents. Here are steps to recover the Word file from Microsoft Word.
- Open your MS Word, click on Tools > Options > Save to know the saving path.
- Verify whether you have enabled your “AutoRecover file location” option or not.

- Now, go to the saving location and recover your Word file.
Method 3: Recover Word File from Temporary Files
When you’re using MS Word to create a document, a temporary file of this document is automatically stored on your system. So, if your system or MS Word crashed, there is a chance that you can find your document in the temporary files.
The location of temporary files depends on the version of Windows. Usually, these files are located at:
C:\Users\\AppData\Local\Temp
C;\Users\\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Word
The temporary files are saved with .tmp extension. In the temporary folder, you’ll find some files, such as:
- A Word document file with ~wrdxxxx.tmp extension
- A temp document file with ~wrfxxxx.tmp extension
- An auto-recovered file will be named as “AutoRecovery save of …” with .asd extension
- A complete backup file will have the extension of .wbk.
A temporary file can only be opened with Notepad. You’ll have to copy the important data from it and then save it in a Word document.
What if you find your valuable file but cannot access its content in your MS Word? There are major chance that your Word file became corrupted for some reason. To cope with corruption issue, try to repair DOC file manually or use a reliable Word Repair tool.
Method 4: Choose Professional Word Recover tool
If manual methods fail to recover your Word file, then you should choose professional Word Recover software that will help you to repair & recover your corrupt Word file and save it as a healthy file in your system. Kernel Word Repair supports DOC, DOCX, DOCM, DOT, DOTM, and DOTX files. Simply, add the corrupted Word file, repair it, and save the Word file locally.
Prominent features of this tool
- Repair and recover bulk Word files in a single process.
- Recover complete Word data including text, fonts, graphics, UNICODE characters, hyperlinks, etc.
- Supports Word files from all Microsoft Word versions.
- Supports large Word files without any limitations.
- Comes with a user-friendly interface to easily repair Word files.
Conclusion
Manual recovery methods help you to restore deleted, unsaved, or lost Microsoft Word documents. But in corruption scenarios, these methods become useless. In that scenario, use the recommended Word repair tool to easily repair and recover Word files.
Frequently asked questions
A . Open MS Word, go to File > Open > Recent > Recover Unsaved Documents to recover your unsaved Word file.
A . Here is the step-by-step guide to recover a Word file.
Step 1: Download, install, and launch the Kernel for Word Repair.
Step 2: Click on Add Files and select a Word file from your system.
Step 3: Click on Repair to recover your Word files.
Step 4: Select saving location and save a healthy Word file.
A . If Always create a backup copy option is enabled, then Microsoft Word saves backup files (.wbk extension) in the configured backup location or AutoRecover folder.
