Any way to recover a word document I've just deleted?

Technology
1

I have just been a complete prat. I’ve been working on a word document for some hours which is a table with lots of detailed information on it. I can recreate it if I have to, but would rather not.

It was in a folder with several other documents and I’ve been “tidying up” the folder and putting stuff into sub-folders and then deleting some stuff. Somehow, in moving stuff around I’ve managed to delete this crucial document.

Is there any way I can undo what I’ve done and recover the document? Suggestions /ideas much appreciated. Thanks.

2

often, when I delete stuff it goes into a Wastebin/Trash which has a separate icon… I can open and empty… or open and revue/grab back stuff…

3

Do you not have a “Recycle Bin” folder?

EDIT: Snap @stella!!

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4

Thanks @Stella and @AngelaR No idea what that is and where to find it? Is it in Word?

5

Do you have explorer - not the internet one, just the one that shows you a list of all the folders on your computer?

EDIT: It’s “WIndows Explorer” and should be in your program files list under Accessories

6

Yes - now what?

7

Scan down the list until you see an icon that’s supposed to look like a wastebin… normally right at the bottom.

If you click on it it should give you a list of all deleted files. Right-click and select “Restore”

8

Don’t Panic! - it’l still be there.
Assuming you’re on Windows…

  1. Click in the bottom left of your screen and start typing recycle - a window will pop up to offer suggestions.
  2. Towards the top of the list you’ll see an image of a wastebasket - click on it
  3. A new window will open showing the contents of the recycle bin.
  4. Right click on the deleted file and select ‘restore’
  5. The file will now be back where you left it
9

Thanks @_Brian No joy - nothing in the recycle bin for today’s date. Assuming I’ve done it right and I’m not sure I have, since I’ve certainly deleted stuff that I copied and then moved. So I’m surprised the page is empty.

10

did you Shift+Delete it?
If it’s important to try to recover it - STOP USING YOUR COMPUTER NOW!!
You don’t actually delete the file, just the entry in the File Allocation Table (FAT).
If you continue to write things to your computer, the space recovered by deleting the file will be overwritten.

and

11

Still panicking!

I’ve found my icon for my recycle bin, thanks - top lefthand corner on my desktop. Clicked on that. Found something called Word autorecovery document which seemed to have the name of the file I’ve lost. Right clicked, clicked “restore” and it’s disappeared from the list, but no idea where it’s gone.

All the emphasis seems to be on emptying the recycle bin, so VERY nervous of getting rid of the little I had.

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Hello everyone @Stella @AngelaR @_Brian @graham ; I am now feeling even more of a prat. :roll_eyes: :roll_eyes: :roll_eyes:

I think all I’ve done is moved it to the wrong folder!!!

Anyway, this has been a very useful exercise for me - though no doubt frustrating for the rest of you. I have never even noticed that I had a recycle bin and certainly never had to go through this process.

Very grateful to all of you. :heart: :heart:

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13

Phew!

Glad that you found it!!

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14

Often, you are only as good as your last backup…
and when deleting potentially important stuff, backup backup backup (Truss’ puppet style hand movements not required) :wink:

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It is an important and complex file, so what I’ve done is just backed it up now (thanks @graham) and I’ll do so every time I make changes to it. It’s the annual calendar to our photo club going forwards to the end of 2023 and I’m the only one who is pulling all the threads together. I’ll make sure the president of our club has a copy too, while it’s still being created.
Thanks again everyone.

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16

@billybutcher it’s been some time since I did any serious stuff on widoze but I do remember a using a utility which allowed you to edit the FAT and replace the first $ character with the actual file name…
Can’t now remember what it was called…

17

Consider an online cloud (free) account like Dropbox.
I use Dropbox (on Linux) when saving the files I use for the tax help files. When opening the file from Dropbox, or the Dropbox folder on my PC, it automatically saves it to the cloud.
Not only that, it means (as I did with the help files this year) you can simply provide a link to the file to anyone you wish to share it with so that they get access to the most up-to-date version of it.

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THat’s a bit dangerous because it doesn’t move the blocks out of the free block list.

I generally go to PhotoRec when I need to find “lost” files.

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only the brave eh… :slightly_smiling_face:

1 Like
20

Its also worth setting the Word autorecover options as shown in the illustration below.

word autorecover
word autorecover1054×862 25 KB

This article may also be worth a read:

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