Lost a "Saved" file that I worked on from an email attachment

Anonymous
2010-04-29T14:47:01+00:00

I downloaded an attachment and forgot to put it into one of my Word folders; I just started working on it as a Word document.  It had the name of the attachment so I was not as aware that I had forgotten to save it in a file.  I worked on it for hours and frequently hit "save", which it appeared to do.  I wanted to send it to someone so I closed the file and then I couldn't find it anywhere.  Is it completely gone or saved somewhere I can't find it?

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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Anonymous
2010-04-29T15:05:00+00:00

You may or may not be able to recover this document since the changes are saved in your Temporary Internet Files folder. Note that you can't just open your Temporary Internet Files folder directly and find it due to the way Windows handles your Temporary Internet files but if it's still available, here's how you can get it back:

Word 2010-2016

  1. Open another Word document sent to you as an attachment from an email. If you don't have one, send an email with an attachment to yourself. (While you should be able to open the same email attachment since another copy of the file is created in your Temporary Internet Files folder, I don't like taking a chance like that.)
  2. Click File, and then click Info.
  3. At the top, below the name of the file, locate the document path. It will be similar to the path shown in the screenshot at the bottom of this post next to E-mail attachment.
  4. Click in the path (after you click in that area, it will turn into a text box) and select only the file path, as shown in the screenshot.
  5. Press Ctrl + C to copy it.
  6. Press the Windows Key + E to open the File Explorer. (Or use an alternate method to open it)
  7. Paste the copied file path in the Address bar (Ctrl + V) and press Enter.

These above steps should put you either in the same location as your revised file or near it. You may need to dig around in other folders to locate the file.

Word 2007

  1. Open another Word document sent to you as an attachment from an email. If you don't have one, send an email with an attachment to yourself. (While you should be able to open the same email attachement since another copy of the file is created in your Temporary Internet Files folder, I don't like taking a chance like that.)
  2. Click the Office Button, point at Prepare, and then click Properties. The Properties pane will display below the Ribbon.
  3. On the far right of the Properties pane you'll see a file path and the document name. Select only the file path and press Ctrl + C to copy it.
  4. Press the WinKey + E to open the Windows Explorer. (Or use an alternate method to open it)
  5. Paste the copied file path in the Address bar and press Enter.

These steps should put you either in the same location as your revised file or near it. You may need to dig around in other folders to locate it.

Note that if you're not using Word 2007 then please let us know the version of Word you are using so that we can provide the necessary steps. For previous versions, to find your version of Word, click Help and then click About Microsoft Word.


~Beth Melton Microsoft Office MVP

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Anonymous
2018-02-07T17:49:01+00:00

Did you try the steps in the solution? To recap and update the instructions for Word 2016:

  1. Open another Word document sent to you as an attachment from an email. If you don't have one, send an email with an attachment to yourself. (While you should be able to open the same email attachment since another copy of the file is created in your Temporary Internet Files folder, I don't like taking a chance like that.)
  2. Click File, and then click Info.
  3. At the top, below the name of the file, locate the document path. It will be similar to the path shown in the screenshot at the bottom of this post next to E-mail attachment.
  4. Click in the path (after you click in that area, it will turn into a text box) and select only the file path, as shown in the screenshot.
  5. Press Ctrl + C to copy it.
  6. Press the Windows Key + E to open the File Explorer. (Or use an alternate method to open it)
  7. Paste the copied file path in the Address bar (Ctrl + V) and press Enter.

These above steps should put you either in the same location as your revised file or near it. You may need to dig around in other folders to locate the file.

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  1. Paul Edstein 82,871 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2018-03-07T21:16:36+00:00

    The solution is simple: Save the document from the attachment to a suitable folder before opening it from there to work on.

    I'm not sure how that helps after the fact...

    After the fact, users can employ the method described in my post of September 18, 2017.

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  2. Anonymous
    2018-03-08T19:37:55+00:00

    Beth

    This was brilliant advice, thank you. It saved me re-doing an hour's work when I'm on a tight schedule.

    Best wishes

    Will Parker

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  3. Anonymous
    2018-03-12T21:50:27+00:00

    The solution is simple: Save the document from the attachment to a suitable folder before opening it from there to work on.

    I'm not sure how that helps after the fact...

    After the fact, users can employ the method described in my post of September 18, 2017.

    But not all users can employ the method you suggested. That only works when an email attachment is opened from a browser based email app.* That's Scenario 1. In Scenario 2, while the desktop Outlook app is supposed to open the attachment in a sandbox and force the user to save under a new file name in a permanent location, it doesn't always work this way. In this scenario, Outlook simply saves document changes in the temp internet files folder and never prompts the user with Save As. If you try opening another attachment and use Save As, Outlook won't take you to the temp files location. Instead, it does what it's supposed to do and reverts to the Documents folder. My suggestion for resolution will work for both of these scenarios.

    *One of the bugs I've been trying to get resolved is in this scenario is Word doesn't automatically change the folder from the temp files folder to a more permanent location. The user simply names the file and clicks Save. The bigger issue with this is if they also have the Delete Temp files on exit option enabled in their browser, which causes them to lose their document. This should be simple to fix, unlike Scenario 2, where it sometimes works and sometimes doesn't work as designed.

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