Manual search

Similarly, in Office 2013 or later, a panel listing recovered documents will appear when you next open a document:

If this all fails, then you can put in some detective work. You can use Windows Search (or the Start menu search box in Windows Vista, 7 or 10) to search for the file name (assuming you saved it at least once).

You need only remember one word from the filename, or if not, search for all Word documents. To do that type *.doc or type *.docx to find all Word files. (The ‘*’ is called a wildcard and means Windows will return any file with a .doc or .docx extension.) If you know you used a different file type, such as RTF, then search for *.rtf instead. (Excel files are .xls or .xlsx, while PowerPoint documents have .ppt or .pptx extensions.)

If that fails, try searching instead for Word backup files using the *.wbk or *.asd wildcards. If that turns nothing up, try *.tmp or ~*.*. You can find more detailed information on Microsoft’s troubleshooting page (tinyurl.com/jscn7wu).