Recovering documents

If Microsoft Word 2019 suddenly closes while working or you forget to save a document that you have been editing for some time, you will definitely want to try to recover the document. In order to do so, follow these steps:

1. Open Microsoft Word. If there are files to be recovered, they will be listed on the launch window of Word 2019, as illustrated in the following screenshot:

2. Word will notify you at the top left-hand corner of the screen if there are files that need attention.
3. Under the Recovered text, click on Show Recovered Files.
4. The Word environment will open with a new blank document, and, to the left of this, the Document Recovery pane will be visible, as illustrated in the following screenshot:

5. If you no longer need the files, click on Close; you will be prompted to confirm that you no longer need to keep them.
6. The times and dates of the revisions are listed under each filename in the Document Recovery pane.

7. Click to the right of the filename to access options about each file, such as Open, Save As..., Delete, or Show Repairs (these will only be active if there are repairs to be conducted—normally when the file is corrupt or experiences errors).
8. You will able to click on the file to view it in the Document Recovery pane, and then decide what to do with it, as illustrated in the following screenshot:

It is also possible to recover files using another method, as follows:

1. Click on File | Info, and the options shown in the following screenshot will appear:

2. Click on Manage Document to access its options.
3. Click on Recover Unsaved Documents.

4. The Open dialog box will populate, showing the UnsavedFiles default folder with all the recovered files listed, as illustrated in the following screenshot:

5. The unsaved document opens in Microsoft Word 2019, where you can edit, save, or close the file.
6. If you wish to get rid of all unsaved documents, click on Delete All Unsaved Documents from the Manage Document list.
7. If you still have recovered files when you close Microsoft Word, a dialog box will open, asking if you would like to view recovered files at a later stage or remove them all right now, as illustrated in the following screenshot: