How to Recover a Lost File in Word 2007 or Word 2003

Have you ever lost a Microsoft Word file and tried to find it? You know it’s there but where is it?

Want to find where it is? Here’s how to do it.

How Microsoft Word saves files

When you write a Microsoft Word document it creates a temporary file (.tmp) that saves your file as you work. When Word crashes — even if you have NOT saved the file —the tmp file is still on your PC.

FYI: Klariti.com also explains different ways to recover lost MS Word documents.

How to Recover a Lost File in Word 2007 or Word 2003

Before we started, I created a new Microsoft Word file, saved it (which creates a tmp file) and then did the following.  This worked on my PC (Windows XP and Word 2007). Fingers crossed that it works for you.

Have to find a lost Microsoft Word file

Follow these steps:

1. In Windows Explorer, click on Tools, and then select Folder Options.

2. Click the View tab.

3. Scroll down and check Show Hidden files and Folder.

This tells Windows to show you files that are generally hidden from view.

Now we’ll look for the *.tmp files and see if this works.

Here’s how to do it.

1. Go back to Windows Explorer.

2. Click on the Search icon on the menu bar. It looks like a magnifying glass.

This opens the search pane in the left menu. We’re going to change the default settings here.

3. Click Don’t Remember for last time modified. This makes it search for every document!

Enter *.tmp for all or part of the document name.

4. In Look In, select the drive you want to search. The screenshots shows My Documents. Maybe you want to search your C or D drive.

5. Click More Advanced Options.

6. Select Hidden Files and Folders.

7. Select Search Subfolders.

8. Click Search. When I did this, I found hundreds of tmp files.

9. From the Explorer toolbar, click View, select Details, sort the files by date and click a file to open it. You may have to do this a few times until you locate your lost file. Obviously, if you just lost it, then open today’s files.

Windows doesn’t know how to open these ~wrl file types so you’re going to have to help it.

10. Click Select the program from a list. We’re going to tell is to open the file in Microsoft Word.

11. Click OK.

12. Select Microsoft Office Word and click OK.

The file opens in Word. But remember the file is still a .tmp file. If you just save it, you’re only saving the tmp file.

13. Click Save As and save the file to .doc.

Remember!

Just to recap, turn on the Explorer options to view the hidden files otherwise you won’t see the tmp files.

Remember to save the files back to a Word file otherwise they are still in tmp format and save them to somewhere on your PC. Right now, they are in the tmp folder. Put them in My Documents, for example.

Other Sites that might be able to help

Klariti.com also explains different ways to recover these lost documents. Lets start by searching for the original document. In other words: you know that you saved your document, but youre not quite sure where you saved it to.

Did you find the files?

I’d be interested to know if these steps work in XP. I don’t have it and so can’t replicate the steps.

If you can, please let us know if these steps work or how to find lost files in XP.

Related posts:

1. How to Recover Corrupt Microsoft Word documents
2. Office 2003 to 2007 User Interface Guides
3. How to Quickly Reduce Microsoft Word File Size – Secret #2
4. How to Quickly Reduce Microsoft Word File Size – Secret #4
5. How to create Absolute and Relative Hyperlinks in Word 2007/2003 documents

Tagged as: Design, Errors, File Management, How to, Lost Files, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Word, My Documents, Recover, Ribbon, Tmp, User Interface, Windows Explorer, Windows XP, Word 2003, Word 2007, Word 2010, Word Processors