Best Way to Recover Deleted Word Document 2016 for Free

Have you lost Word document due to accidental deletion? If that was a temporary deletion, you can recover Word file from the recycle bin. But if you’ve permanently deleted the Word file by using Shift + Del + Enter, the recovery task becomes a bit challenging for you. Now you must be wondering how to recover deleted Word document. In this very article, I’ll be sharing a few easy methods to recover the lost Word document from the computer.

Let’s suppose you’ve been working on a Word document for a week. It’s a really crucial file. And one day, the file gets lost. Accidental deletion is considered the most common reason for data loss. Generally, if it’s a temporary deletion, the deleted file goes to the recycle bin. Users can restore the deleted file from the recycle bin with ease. But what will do you in the case of permanent deletion? If you use Shift + Del + Enter, the file gets permanently deleted from the computer.

Another common reason for data loss is corruption. Generally, corruption makes a file inaccessible. You can’t open a corrupt file until you repair it. And sometimes the file gets lost if it’s corrupt or damaged. A corrupt Word file can be repaired with the help of a few easy DIY tricks. Refer to this article to know how to repair Word file. But if the corruption is severe, you should consider using a 3rd party Word Recovery tool to recover your data from corrupt Word file.

How does a file get permanently deleted?

Before we can learn how to recover deleted Word document, let’s get familiar with the most common reasons for a Word file being accidentally deleted.

• Shift + Del + Enter: It’s one of the most possible reasons for permanent deletion in the computer. Whenever you delete a Word document by using Shift + Del + Enter keys, it gets permanently deleted from the computer.
• Hard Disk Formatting: If you format the hard disk or any local drive, it’ll completely erase all the data stored in it. Users often format their drives in order to erase the data. But sometimes a crucial file like Word document also gets deleted if it was saved in the drive.
• Deleting Files using Command Prompt: This method is also known as “force delete” using Windows. Sometimes while trying to open, move, rename or delete a file, Windows tells that the file is in use by a program. It’s really very frustrating, especially when you know the file ain’t being used by any program. In such a situation, users often delete the files by using the command prompt.
• Emptying Recycle Bin: The temporary deleted files go to the recycle bin from where you can easily restore them. But sometimes it may happen that you empty the recycle bin before you could realize that the deleted files are still there. Since the recycle bin has been emptied, the deleted files have gone for good.

How to recover deleted Word document?

In order to recover deleted Word document from the computer, you should try a few easy DIY tricks before purchasing a professional data recovery tool. The DIY tricks I’m sharing here don’t require any 3rd party tool:

Use the Backup File

The first and foremost thing you should consider is using the backup file. If you take the backup of your computer data regularly, you can prevent data loss situation due to accidental deletion or corruption. A backup file contains the copy of your computer data which you can restore at any time. So if you’ve taken the backup of your Word documents, you can successfully restore them without using any 3rd party recovery software. Never forget to take the backup of your crucial data in a regular manner. Unfortunately, if you don’t have any backup, you should try to recover deleted Word document by using other DIY tricks.

Use the Word Document Backup

Word document backup, also known as WBK file, is a backup file that contains a backup copy of your Word document. You can recover the Word document from the WBK file if you’ve lost Word document due to accidental deletion or corruption. Microsoft Word automatically creates the WBK file if you’ve enabled the “Always create backup copy” option.

To enable this option, follow these steps:

1. First, launch Microsoft Word on your system.
2. On the taskbar, click the File tab → Options.
3. On the Word Options dialog box, click the Advanced tab.
4. Now scroll down to see the Save section. You’ll find an option “Always create backup copy”.
5. Check the box to enable this option, and click OK.

If you’ve enabled the backup option in Microsoft Word, there may be a backup copy of the file. In order to find the backup copy of the Word document, locate the folder in which the missing or deleted file was saved. In that very folder, you need to search for the file that has the WBK extension. And once you find the WBK file, you can open the file just like you open any other Word document.

Note: If you can’t find the WBK file on your computer, you can use the Word auto-save file (ASD) to recover deleted Word document. It’s a temporary backup created by Microsoft Word 2007 and earlier versions.

Use Word AutoRecover Feature

Microsoft Word has a built-in feature, called AutoRecover that can help you recover deleted Word documents. It’s very simple to use this feature. You just need to open Microsoft Word, and you’ll see all the recoverable files on the left side. But if you don’t find the Word document that you actually want to recover, you need to manually search for AutoRecover files. Follow these simple steps to do that:

1. First, launch Microsoft Word on your system.
2. On the taskbar, click the File tab →Options.
3. Now find the Recover Unsaved Documents option. Browse for the file in the list.
4. Once you find the deleted file, click it and restore it.

Use Temporary (*.tmp) File

Generally, the temporary files are created in the temporary files folder on the computer. And the temporary files are created for almost all the computer files including the Word documents. Any computer file remains temporary until you don’t save the file. And when the Word program crashes down unexpectedly or the computer turns off before you could actually save the file, the temp files become very useful. You can recover deleted Word document by locating the temporary files. Follow these simple steps to do that:

• On the Windows Desktop, press Win+R.
• On the Run window, type %temp% in the edit box, and press Enter.

This will take you to the temporary files folder. Here you can search the temporary file of the deleted Word document.

Use Professional Data Recovery Tool

If you can’t recover deleted Word document by using any of the DIY tricks given above, you should now consider using a professional Data Recovery tool. Windows Data Recovery tool provided by Data Recovery Solutions is one of the best solutions available in the online marketplace. It can recover your data which you’ve lost due to any reason, be it accidental deletion or corruption. So if you’ve lost Word document due to accidental deletion, you should run this software to restore it back from the computer. Apart from Word documents, it can successfully recover almost all type of computer files in their original form.

Before you can purchase this Windows Data Recovery software, you must download its demo version for free evaluation. By using the demo version, you can scan the hard disk drive and check the preview of your recoverable data prior to saving. And if you can see the deleted Word documents in the preview session, you can purchase the software to save them.

Conclusion

Since Microsoft Word is the most popular Word processor application, the documents created by it are so crucial. But sometimes they may get lost due to accidental deletion or corruption. In this article, we’ve discussed the most common reasons for a Word file being accidentally deleted. Also, we’ve learned a few easy DIY tricks to recover deleted Word document from the computer. And if the DIY tricks don’t work, a 3rd party Windows Data Recovery tool can recover all the data including the Word documents from the hard disk drive.

Related Post: Lock and Unlock a Word Document.