Don't Save — Have you ever seen this box and accidentally clicked Don’t Save?

Have you ever started typing a new document and accidentally closed the program without saving? Or maybe the computer shut down or restarted? Is everything lost? Do I have to start it all over?

Not to worry. Microsoft Office 2010 (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.) has a nice feature that lets you recover your unsaved document. By default, Office will auto-save a draft of the document every 10 minutes but you can change that as well.

Table of Contents

Recover the File

The steps to recover a file are pretty easy. There are two ways to do the same thing so we’ll go through each one.

With Word (or whatever Office program you were using) open, click on File
This is where we have two ways to get to the same screen. Both are easy so just pick which one you like.
1. OPTION 1
  1. Click on Recent
  2. Click on Recover Unsaved Documents near the bottom
2. OPTION 2:
  1. Select Info
  2. Under Versions, click Manage Versions and select Recover Unsaved Documents
You should now see a window with a list of your unsaved documents.
Find the name of your document and use the time and date listed under the column “Date modified” to select which version you wish to open. Then click Open.
The document will open in a new window with a warning at the top.
Click the Save As button on the warning bar to immediately save the recovered file. That’s it! Your file has been recovered and saved.

Change Your Auto-Save Time

If you want your computer to auto-save documents more often, open Word and go to File -> Options. On the Save tab is an option to change the time for the auto-save. You can also check the location where your auto-save drafts will go.