HOW TO LOCATE LOST WORD DOC

JENNIFER VULETIC 20 Reputation points
2026-07-16T10:18:23.4+00:00

I've lost a Word Doc I'm pretty sure I Autosaved, cannot locate it ANYWHERE. Not in OneDrive, not on my Mac, have spent an hour using all the hacks suggested to locate it, and no luck.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | MacOS
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Xavier-D 13,110 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator
2026-07-17T01:43:08.55+00:00

Hello JENNIFER VULETIC

I can see that you have lost your Word Doc and need to locate it

the remaining recovery options depend on whether the document was ever saved to OneDrive or whether Word created an AutoRecover copy.

Please try these two official AutoRecovery locations, as the folder used can vary by Word version:

  1. In Finder, select Go > Go to Folder, or press Shift + Command + G.
  2. Check each path separately:
    ~/Library/Containers/com.Microsoft.Word/Data/Library/Preferences/AutoRecovery
    ~/Library/Containers/com.Microsoft/Data/Library/Preferences/AutoRecovery

Also reopen Word and check whether the Document Recovery pane appears.

The AutoRecover may retain a temporary copy after an unexpected shutdown, but if Word was closed normally and Don’t Save was selected, that recovery copy is removed.

You can read more about this info here: Recover files in Office for Mac

If neither AutoRecovery folder contains the document and it cannot be found in OneDrive, Finder, Trash, or Word’s recent files, the remaining recovery options are unfortunately very limited.

Feel free reply back to this post if you need further assistance, I'll be happy to help.

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