If your power goes out or your computer malfunctions when working on an Word for Mac 2011 document, all you have to do is open the application again. Word 2011 for Mac looks for and opens any AutoRecover files for the document(s) that you were working on when an unexpected crash occurred. Your document opens with “Recovered” appended to the filename. Choose File→Save As from the menu bar to restore the original filename and location.
You’ll try everything to recover your unsaved Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files, isn’t it? Along the similar lines, the blog highlights, both manual and software approaches to recover unsaved excel file mac and deleted saved Office for Mac files in the best possible manner.
Word for Mac can recover files that were open because, by default, Word autosaves your document every ten minutes while you’re working on it. If you want, you can change the save time interval within the AutoRecover setting as follows:
- Permanently deleted Office for Mac files? ‘I made a big blunder. I forgot to take the backup of an important folder, which had all the Microsoft Office files, before resetting my iMac running on macOS Catalina 10.15. Is there a way I can recover the Office PPT, Excel and Word files on Mac after a factory reset?’.
- It takes very simple steps to completely restore deleted Microsoft Office files on Mac. Here are these steps. Step 1: After installing this software on your Mac. Then select file types you want to recover. In order to restore deleted Microsoft Office files from Mac, you just need to select 'Microsoft Office/iWork Files'.
Choose Word→Preferences→Save from the menu bar.
Word’s Save preferences are displayed.
Change the number of minutes in the Save AutoRecover Info Every: [X] Minutes setting.
The default is 10 minutes. Entering a lower number saves more often, but you may notice Word is more sluggish when it saves so often. Entering a higher number may make Word perform better, but you may lose more changes if a power outage or computer crash occurs.
You can deselect this check box if you don’t want Word to save an AutoRecover file. You might do this for extremely large documents that take a long time to save. Of course, if you experience a power outage or computer crash, you will lose all your changes since the last time you manually saved the file.
You don’t need to select the Always Create Backup Copy check box. With AutoRecover and Time Machine, the bases are covered. The option is there only for backward compatibility.
Click OK when you’re finished.
Rarely, Word might not automatically display the AutoRecover file for the document(s) you were working on the next time you open Word. In that case, do the following in Word to open the AutoRecover file:
Choose File→Open from the menu bar.
Type AutoRecover or type a keyword or phrase in the Spotlight Search box in the top-right corner of the Open dialog.
Double-click the most recently saved AutoRecover file, or select the file and click Open. If you did a keyword or phrase search, use the Last Opened information to help you choose a likely file to open.
If the file you want is grayed-out, choose All Files in the Enable pop-up menu, which allows you to open any file type.
You can also use Mac OS X Time Machine to recover any file that you’ve saved at least once. When you use Word for Mac, it’s nearly impossible to lose more than a few minutes’ worth of work thanks to AutoRecover and Time Machine.
You’ll try everything to recover your unsaved Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files, isn’t it? Along the similar lines, the blog highlights, both manual and software approaches to recover unsaved excel file mac and deleted saved Office for Mac files in the best possible manner.
Losing Important Files is Never A Good Thing
Suppose you’re working on a high-priority multi-sheet Excel workbook (tracking sales record) and simultaneously preparing Word templates and PowerPoint presentations to give it a visual kick, and suddenly, out of nowhere, before saving all your files you accidentally end up closing all the windows or your Mac shuts down unexpectedly. Irrespective of how did that happen, there is a chance you can recover unsaved files.
Check the Trash
When files are deleted (not permanently) they can be found in the Trash. Go to Trash, locate the files and restore the required file from the trash.
If the saved files are emptied from the trash resulting in permanent deletion then restore the deleted files from the Time Machine backup. macOS users are fortunate to have Time Machine tool built-in with every Mac device. However, in case the backup is absent then leverage a data recovery tool for Mac to retrieve deleted files.
Due to sudden Mac shutdown, the unsaved files are lost, in such cases, chances are bleak that you’ll find the lost files in Trash, however, as the first line of action the least you can do is Check the Trash.
Methods to Restore Unsaved Office Documents on Mac
Restore unsaved PowerPoint file on Mac from the Temporary folder
You can restore unsaved files from the Temporary folder (“Temp” folder) as well. For instance, while working on a PowerPoint presentation your Mac crashes before saving it, then you can recover the unsaved PowerPoint file with the help of PowerPoint temp files.
Follow these steps to locate PowerPoint temp files:
- Go to Applications, click Utilities > Terminal
- In the Terminal windows, type “open $TMPDIR” and hit “Enter“
- The command opens Temporary files folder. Select the folder named ‘‘Temporaryitems”
- Under ”Temporaryitems” find the required Excel file and restore. Open the PowerPoint file with ‘TextEdit’ because a .tmp does not work with PowerPoint.
For example, the unsaved PowerPoint file will be named ‘PowerPointfile B$123.tmp‘
Restore Unsaved Word file on Mac from AutoRecover folder
AutoRecovery, a built-in feature for Word in Mac is on by default. This implies that your Mac saves (Incremental saving) the files without telling you to manually do so; however, the only consideration is that you ought to initially save the Word document. AutoRecovery saves files when Mac shuts down unexpectedly, for example, power failure.
*If you haven’t saved your Word document once, you’ll lose the unsaved files, whether AutoRecover was enabled or not.
To access AutoRecovery file, which is a hidden file, you need to locate hidden files and folders in order to restore unsaved Word file. With this done, open Finder and type AutoRecover in the Spotlight search box. Once you’ve found the file, open and save it again.
Also, you can find files under:
Users/<username>/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Word/Data/Library/Preferences/AutoRecovery
You can recover unsaved Office files for Mac with the Terminal command but have to apply your technical sophistication to prevent ambiguity. Furthermore, to recover saved files lost due to accidental deletion, unintentional formatting, and corrupt storage devices, Stellar Data Recovery Professional for Mac is the most effective method. This is because the software facilitates straightforward recovery process which not only retrieves lost files with ease but saves your times as well.
Method to Restore Deleted Saved Word & PowerPoint on Mac
Restore Deleted Files on Mac with Stellar Data Recovery Professional
With the help of Stellar Data Recovery Professional for Mac, you can recover deleted Excel, Word or PowerPoint in just four easy steps. You can easily get the trial version of the application for your Mac below:
- Install & Run the software on your Mac
- Make your selection i.e. select the data files and location from where you wish to recover deleted files
- Scan the specified location
- Preview and save the recoverable files
Again, the files must have been saved initially on the hard drive in order to recover them through the software. In addition to it, if you accidentally delete your data, format the hard drive, or lost files while downgrading/upgrading macOS, simply run the software to retrieve all missing files.
Read – Top 10 Mac Data Recovery Software
Best Practices – AutoSave
You should leverage AutoSave feature in Word, Excel, & PowerPoint to save files automatically; further, you can set its frequency. For instance, you can set AutoSave to save your files every 5 minutes, 10 minutes, or 15 minutes.
Set the frequency of AutoSave in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint:
- Open Word, Excel, or PowerPoint menu and click Preference
- Click Save; select Save AutoRecover info and enter how frequently you want to save the files
Conclusion
It is a good practice to save all your files and make backups periodically to prevent any untoward situation. This blog has put together some useful tips on how you can quickly recover Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files on Mac.
Using Microsoft Office On Mac
Furthermore, Stellar Data Recovery Professional for Mac software makes the process quite easier as you have to simply make selections and this Do-It-Yourself utility takes care of everything. In the end, you should turn to your backups to obviate such menacing situations.