How to Recover a Lost Word Document in Windows 8.1 or Windows 8

I lost a .docx document in Windows 8.1 while I was writing it on Microsoft Word. I accidentally clicked No instead of cancel while saving the document on the desktop. The computer didn't crash or reboot. How can I recover a lost Word document in Windows 8.1?

After hours of turning out a professional-looking Microsoft Word document with over 50 pages in your Windows 8 or 8.1 computer, a mishap occurs the next moment as you go browse it: The Word file disappeared. Maybe the Windows refresh deletes the Word document abruptly or perhaps you forgot to save it on the disk. Whatever the occasion may be, we have your back to recover a Word document on Windows 8/ 8.1 PC, whether it's deleted, lost, unsaved or permanently gone.

Let's now embark on a detailed discourse about the Word file recovery in 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, or later versions of Microsoft Word (MS Word). For the purpose of recovering deleted Microsoft Word documents on Windows 8 or 8.1 using Shift+Delete, go straight to the second trick.

Solution 1: Recover Unsaved Documents

Way too often, the MS Word's built-in Recover Unsaved Documents option is amazingly convenient for recovering an unsaved Word document on Windows 8/ 8.1 laptop or desktop. It also comes into handy to help recover content that you've recently removed or overwritten from an open document.

You can first go to File > Open > Browse to look if there's any most recent versions of Word file that you want to recover. (In Word 2013, select File > Open > Computer > Browse.) Should no luck, use the instructions below to restore unsaved Word files from Windows 8 computer:

• In a new Word file, click on the File tab and select Info option.
• Hit Manage Document and choose Recover Unsaved Documents from the drop-down list.



• Select the unsaved Word documents you'd like to recover.
• Open the recovered Word document in Word and click on Save As button at the top.

Solution 2: Data Recovery

In the absence of an official tool to retrieve permanently deleted Word files in Windows 8/ 8.1, Data Recovery have sprung up, serving up mighty scanning and recovery tools for getting back deleted Word documents, as well as Excel files, pictures, videos or more from any drive or storage media.

Once you've downloaded this undelete tool, it can be used to rebuild an individual missing Word file or in bulk with size and file extension intact. Its integrated filtering function can also match the ease of going directly to a specific Document folder or a Word file with particular format like .doc, .docx, .docm, .dot, etc. Here's a four-step wizard to recover lost Word documents on Windows 8 or 8.1.

• Install and open Data Recovery tool on your Windows 8/ 8.1 computer.
• Tick the box of Document and highlight the drive or volume to be recovered from.



• Click on Scan button. It'll start finding the lost Windows 8 Word documents.
• Choose the deleted Word file(s) you want to retrieve and press Recover.

When the process of the Windows 8 Word document recovery is done, you should receive a "Recovery Finished" message like what's shown below:

Solution 3: Search for the Original Document

If you can't find a lost Word file in a Windows 8 or 8.1 PC - and you don't even delete it, all that matters to do is to utilize the taskbar's Cortana search feature to locate the missing Word document.

• Open Start menu in Windows 8 or Windows 8.1.
• Type the name of the missing Word document in the Search box and hit Enter.
• If you find the deleted Word file from the File list, double-click the document to open it in Word.

Solution 4: Search for AutoRecover Files

Typically, MS Word will automatically list autosaved files to recover in the Document Recovery pane when it shuts down or crashes without saving the Word files. But you can still manually retrieve the unsaved Word documents in Windows 8 after computer restarts using the following steps:

Tips: The name of AutoRecocver file often end in the .asd file name extension.

• Open a new Word document. Then, go to the File tab and hit Options at the bottom.
• In the left sidebar, click on Save.
• In the "Save documents" section, find "AutoRecover file location" and copy the path.



• Then, Paste the path in the File Explorer and press the Enter key.
• Locate the unsaved Word files with .asd extension and right-click the one you need to recover.
• Choose Open with. In the pop-up screen, select Word and hit OK.

Solution 5: Recycle Bin

Your Windows 8/ 8.1 computer comes with its own Recycle Bin folder. If you deleted a MS Word file using the Delete button or removed it into the Recycle Bin directly, you're allowed to retrieve the deleted Word documents from the Recycle Bin on a Windows 8 computer for free before emptying.

• Open Recycle Bin.
• Choose the Word file(s) that you want to restore. Then, right-click on the checked item(s).
• Select Restore to retrieve a deleted Word document back from Windows 8.

Solution 6: Search for Word Backup Files

You don't have to need a third-party program to restore a Word document saved in Windows 8/ 8.1 after the computer crashed if you got Word backup files with you. And it only takes three single steps to perform the Word document recovery process:

• Locate the folder in which you last saved the missing Word file in File Explorer.
• Search for the Word files that have the .wbk file name extension.
• Right-click on the backup file you need and click on Open button.

If there're no .wbk files in the original folder, you can step through this guide to search the computer for any .wbk files.

Solution 7: Search for Temporary Files

Alongside the above, searching for the temporary files is also one easy trick to recover a .docx Word file that's saved over from Windows 8's hard drive.

• On the taskbar, click on Search icon, type .tmp in the search field and press the Enter key.
• Choose Documents from the toolbar.
• Browse to the files list and select the Word files with most recent dates and times

Solution 8: Windows Backup Utility

Your last resort involves employing Windows backup strategies to undelete the Word files from Windows 8. Depending the way in which you implement Windows backups, you can restore the missing Word documents back from Windows Backup and Restore, File History or Previous versions.

Next Up: How to Recover Excel Files from Windows 10