How to Recover Unsaved Word Document 2019/2016/2011/2017 on Mac (5 Best Ways)

Don't have a habit to save your Word document every now and then while editing? You are more likely to lose some new contents due to various reasons. All operations after the previous saved state are gone. What should you do?

Microsoft Word document contents loss on Mac may easily occur. You won't care about it until one day you lose one important file. You edit and do lots of works on a Word 2019/2016/2017/2013/2011/2015 document and forget to save. You prefer to directly recover unsaved Word file, rather than write it again, and you come here to look for a way.

Get a Word document that accidentally closed without saving? If all the new operations on it are gone permanently? The following parts will show you how to recover unsaved Word document on a Mac.

• Part 1: Best way to recover unsaved Word document on Mac
• Part 2: Check Trash to recover unsaved Word document on Mac
• Part 3. Check Temporary folder to recover unsaved Word document on Mac
• Part 4: Recover unsaved Word document on Mac with AutoRecovery
• Part 5. Recover unsaved Word document on Mac with Time Machine

Part 1. Best way to recover unsaved Word document on Mac

In fact, Mac data recovering software can be the best option to recover deleted/lost files, including unsaved Word document on Mac. In case you have tried all methods you knew and fail to get lost data back, here at the first part, we sincerely recommend the professional Mac Data Recovery to help you recover unsaved Word 2019/2016/2017/2011/2013 document on Mac.

Step 1Launch Mac Data Recovery

Double click the download button above to free download, install and run this powerful Mac data recovering software on your Mac. Make sure you download the right version. When you enter its main interface, choose the "Mac Data Recovery" feature.

Step 2Scan unsaved Word file(s)

This all-featured data recovery software enables you to recover many frequently-used data types like photos, audio, videos, emails, documents and more. If all your need is to recover unsaved Word document, here you can only choose Document. It will quick the scanning speed.

Click "Scan" to start a quick scan on your Mac. It also offer a Deep Scan feature in case you can't find the deleted or lost data.

Step 3Recover unsaved Word document on Mac

After scanning, you can see all your files from the results. You can click specific data type on the left pane. You can quickly find the unsaved Word file through filter feature, data type or path list.

You are allowed to view each file by double clicking on it. Select files you want to restore and then click the "Recover" to recover your unsaved Word documents on Mac.

Part 2. Check Trash to recover unsaved Word document on Mac

Many reasons will cause your unsaved Word document gone. Go without saying that, when you lose some data on Mac, Trash will definitely be an important place where you want to get them back. So first, you can open Trash folder to look for your missing Word file.

You can double click Trash icon in the dock to open Trash folder. You can see many contents of the trash. When you find the Word file, you can right click on it and choose "Put Back" to recover unsaved Word document on Mac. Read more about how to recover Trash on Mac.

Part 3. Check Temporary folder to recover unsaved Word document on Mac

To recover unsaved Word document on Mac, you can rely on the Temporary folder. Mac Temporary folder may keep some files temporarily. Most users don't know this method because this folder is hard to find. You can check the path below to look for your lost document.

Step 1First, you need to locate "Terminal". You can open "Applications" and then choose "Utilities" to find "Terminal".

Step 2Open "Terminal" > "$TMPDIR" and then press "Enter" on your keyboard to enter the Terminal folder. Here you can check "Temporaryitems" folder to try finding your unsaved Word document, and also the temp Excel file.

Part 4. Recover unsaved Word document on Mac with AutoRecovery

You should know that, the powerful Word software is equipped with a built-in auto save feature, for both Mac version and Windows version, called AutoRecovery. It has the capability to automatically save the document you are working on. You can restore Word document through this function. This method works for Word 2019, Word 2016, Word 2017, Word 2013, Word 2011, and Word 2015.

Step 1Open "Finder" and then click "Go" > "Go to Folder" option on your Mac.

Step 2You can directly search for and go to AutoRecovery folder. So you can paste direct path like "~/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Word/Data/Library/Preferences/AutoRecovery" to get there.

Step 3You will see several or many files with "AutoRecovery save of" when you enter the AutoRecovery folder. Locate the one you want to recover and then change its file extension to Word ".doc".

Step 4Open it to check if it is the unsaved Word document you want to recover. You can click "File" > "Save As" to change a new name. Then click the "Save" button to confirm the operation of recovering unsaved Word document.

Note: The unsaved Word file need to initially be saved with a name on your Mac. Or you can't use this method to find and recover unsaved Word document.

Part 5. Recover unsaved Word document on Mac with Time Machine

Time Machine provides a simple way to back up data on your Mac. Same time, you can rely on it to restore all types of files on Mac. Time Machine is able to make a copy of everything on your Mac. But we have to admit that, for unsaved Word document, you have little hope to get it back from Time Machine backup. But if you want to restore some deleted/lost Word files from Time Machine, it will turn be a good solution.

We have shared 5 effective ways to recover unsaved Word document on Mac. Hope you can easily find your Word file back after reading page. If you still have any doubt or any better solution, you can tell us in the comment.