Hey guys, i'm pretty desperate here. Just spent several hours writing an important document to find that it has vanished completely off my system dispite saving regularly.

Basically i was using an older word file (.doc) as the basis for the document. The first time i tried to save it (as .docx) it gave me a warning that the document might not be structured the same in .docx so i pressed cancel. And then went Save as, and chose to save in .doc format.

This seemed to be fine and i spent the next several hours saving regularly without problem. However when i came to email it the file had vanished. It isn't even in Words recent documents. However having searched my computer i found the file in windows recent file folder but it was the .docx version, that i cancelled saving. Upon clicking it it just says that it cant find the file. Stupidly i didnt have automatic backup files ticked so i cant use that and word didn't crash so it doesn't have an AutoRecover file i'm guessing

So is that it, several hours gone to waste? Have you guys ever encountered anything like this before? or any ideas on how to fix it?

If you read that wall of text, thanks now please help me before i kill myself.

Perhaps you didn't give the file the name that you thought? Search for all *.doc files and see what comes up.

__________________
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional

Tried that, still nothing. Thankfully, ive found it now, thanks anyway was buried in the bottom of a load of hidden system files in a temp folder somewhere. Had to turn my Hard drive upside down to find it

OK, if a file ends up in a hidden folder you won't find it, unless you choose to search hidden files and folders. Thank you for the follow-up!

__________________
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional