How to Recover Word Documents from Temporary Files

This article examines creative ways to recover Word documents from temporary files.

MS Word is a popular word processing software with users from all parts of the world. Sometimes disaster strikes and while working with the application such as an abrupt power outage or crashing of your computer. In such a case, it is possible to lose any unsaved data. This article examines how you can recover your MS Word documents from temporary files.

A closer look at MS Word temporary files

Temporary files come in handy when processing Word documents. They hold information temporarily to avoid data loss that can be caused by abrupt shutdown of the program or power outage. Temporary files that can be used to recover Word documents come with .tmp, .wbk, or .asd extension. Usually, these files are found in the Application Data folder under Microsoft. You can also check the ‘Temp’ folder under Local Settings.

Methods of recovering Word documents from temporary files

1. Recover unsaved files manually

When the AutoSave feature in MS Word is activated, the program saves temporary files on the hard disk. These files can easily be accessed by navigating to ‘AppData>Roaming>Microsoft>Word’ or ‘UnsavedFiles’ under the Office folder.

You can also access the temporary files by opening a blank Word document. Click the ‘File’ tab and under the ‘Info’ option, tap ‘Document Management’. This gives you the option to ‘Recover Unsaved Documents’. This allows you to browse the ‘UnsavedFiles’ folder. Now select the file you are interested in and hit the open button. Now open the Word document. On the alert message that appears, hit the ‘Save As’ button. This will give you the option to save the document and recover any unsaved data.

If the ‘UnsavedFiles’ is empty, select the ‘Browse’ button on this dialogue box and navigate to the ‘Word’ folder described above. The documents you find here may be read-only files. Save the document on another location to make it editable.

Sometimes you find multiple versions of the same document. In this case, open the file using a text editor such as Note Pad before open it using MS Word. This allows you to see the raw file and determine the version that contains most of the unsaved information. It is important to note that this method works if the temporary files are ok. However, if the files are corrupt, you will need a different approach to repair the corrupt Word file as explained below.

2. Use DataNumen Word Repair tool

You can also use a specialized tool such as DataNumen Word Repair to recover your Word document. This software supports the recovery of Word documents from corrupt .wbk and .ask files. The good news is that it has a high success rate of 92.78% compared to other applications in its class.

To use the software, install and launch it on your computer. Under the ‘Repair’ tab, select the source file and input the output file details. Now click the ‘Start Repair’ button. You will receive an alert message when the repair process is complete.

Final Thoughts

Manual recovery of temporary Word files is possible when the target documents are not corrupt. However, when such files are inaccessible, it is wise to use specialized tools that have a high success rate. This increases the chance of recovering most of your data.