How to Recover Microsoft Office Excel, Word or PowerPoint Files

Losing important Excel, Word or PowerPoint documents due to a system crash, accidental deletion, or not saving your work can be incredibly frustrating. Fortunately, Microsoft Office has built-in auto-recovery features that allow you to restore unsaved or deleted files in many cases.

In this article, we will provide step-by-step instructions on how to recover unsaved or deleted Excel, Word and PowerPoint files on both Windows and Mac operating systems. We will also offer tips on enabling auto-save and auto-recover options to prevent data loss going forward.

How to Recover Unsaved or Deleted Excel Files

If Excel closes unexpectedly before you save your work, the auto-recover feature will automatically reopen and restore your unsaved Excel workbook the next time you open the program. You should then immediately save the restored file.

You can also manually restore unsaved Excel workbooks:

On Windows:

1. Open Excel and click File > Open
2. Click Recover Unsaved Workbooks at the bottom of the recent files list
3. Select your unsaved workbook and click Open
4. Save the restored file

On Mac:

1. Click File > Open Recent
2. Click Recover Unsaved Workbooks at the bottom of the recent files list
3. Select your unsaved workbook and click Open
4. Save the restored file

If you have deleted an important Excel file, check your Recycle Bin or Trash folder and restore if available. You can also try using third party data recovery software to scan your drives for deleted files.

How to Recover Unsaved or Deleted Word Documents

To restore unsaved Word documents:

On Windows:

1. Open Word, click File > Info
2. Click Manage Document > Recover Unsaved Documents
3. Select your document and click Open, then save

On Mac:

1. Click File > Open Recent
2. Click Recover Unsaved Documents at the bottom
3. Select your document, click Open and save

To recover deleted Word documents:

Check your Recycle Bin or Trash folder. If not found there, try using Word’s built-in tool to recover text from any file or use third party data recovery software.

How to Recover Unsaved or Deleted PowerPoint Presentations

To restore unsaved PowerPoint files:

On Windows:

1. Open PowerPoint, click File > Open
2. Select Recover Unsaved Presentations at the bottom
3. Choose your presentation and click Open, then save

On Mac:

1. Click File > Open Recent
2. Click Recover Unsaved Presentations
3. Select your presentation, click Open and save

To recover deleted PowerPoint files:

Check your Recycle Bin or Trash folder. If not found there, try using third party PowerPoint recovery software to scan your drives for deleted presentations.

Tips to Prevent Data Loss

Here are some tips to ensure Office auto-save features are enabled so you have the best chance of recovering lost data:

• Enable AutoRecover in Excel: Click File > Options > Save and check Save AutoRecover information every: 10 minutes
• Adjust Word AutoRecovery file location: Click File > Options > Save and set location to save backup files, like OneDrive
• Enable AutoSave in PowerPoint: Click File > Options > Save and check Automatically save PowerPoint files at the following interval: Every 10 minutes
• Backup important Office files: Manually save copies to external drives or cloud storage like OneDrive

Conclusion

Losing Office documents can be frustrating but is often recoverable using built-in auto-save and auto-recover features. Enable these options for maximum protection against data loss. Also be sure to regularly backup important Excel, Word and PowerPoint files externally. Following these best practices will save you time, frustration and lost work.