How to Recover Deleted Word Document

You may have often been in situations where you lost Word documents that you spent hours writing or editing. Sometimes while organizing your folders, you may accidentally delete the necessary files. Fortunately, this is not the end of the road. There are ways to recover deleted Word files in Windows 11/10/8/7, and here, we will walk you through six such quick and easy methods.

Recover Permanently Deleted Word Documents with Software

iBeesoft Data Recovery Software gives you one of the most simple, quick, and comprehensive solutions that can help you recover deleted Word files without hassle. It not only works on Windows 11/10/8 but also has a macOS version.

With the iBeesoft data recovery tool, you can restore deleted PDF, photos, audio, videos, documents, and more from internal and external disks. The software can also repair corrupted Word files during the search process.

So no matter how you lost your Word documents, whether it was accidental deletion, an OS reinstall, hard drive formatting, unsaved, system crash, or virus attack. This effective software can recover a deleted Word document on Mac and Windows as quickly as possible.

Step-by-step guide

1. Get the Word recovery software for your computer by clicking on the Download button and installing and launching it. It is virus-free and a standalone software tool, so you can use it without fear.
2. Once on the next window, you can see all available hard drives on your operating system. Choose the one where you have lost Word documents to scan and click "Scan." If you have saved the Word documents to the Windows Documents Folder, you must select system drive.
3. Let the scanning process complete. Once done, check the files that have been found. Once you find the document you have been looking for, you’d better save it to a safe place instead of where you get the file deleted or lost.

Get Back a Deleted Word Document with Ctrl+Z

Ctrl+Z is an easy solution to undo accidentally deleted files on your system. With this, you can return them even if you have accidentally deleted a file or folder on the computer's hard disk drive.

Step-by-step guide

1. Press Ctrl + Z or right-click on the location.
2. You will see a pop-up list with several options. Tap on "Undo Delete" to get your files back.

Restore Deleted Word Document from a Local Backup

A relatively new feature in Windows 10 and 11 is called Backup and Restore. This option lets you create backups of your data and restore them afterward if required. To recover deleted Word files through Backup and Restore, you must ensure that you enable the option on your Windows device. Follow the below guide to do so.

Step-by-step guide

1. First, you must connect the external media carrier holding the backup to your primary device.
2. Next, go to "Control Panel" > select "System and Security" > click "Backup and Restore (Windows 7)" option.
3. Once in the Backup and Restore menu, look for the "Restore my files" option. After this, a Restore wizard will pop up to start deleted word file recovery.
4. If you cannot find the "Restore my files" option, go for the "Select another backup to restore files" option. Once again, a wizard will pop up to assist you with your recovery.

By using the Recovering via Backup and Restore method, you will replace all data on your Windows device with backed-up data. So, to avoid further data loss, you must ensure that the backup comprises all your essential data.

Retrieve Deleted Word Document with a Previous Version

It is another convenient option available with a PC whereby you can recover deleted Word files through the "File History" option. If you had enabled this option before deleting the document, you could use it to recover permanently deleted files in Windows 11 and 10 without downloading any additional software.

Step-by-step guide

1. Go to the Start menu in the Windows search bar and type File History.
2. Now select the 'File History Settings.
3. Select "Restore personal files," which you will find on the left-hand side of the window.
4. Now navigate the feature to the backup you wish to restore. You can do so with the help of the left and right navigation buttons present at the bottom of the window. You can preview backup dates and folders when you switch between backups.
5. When you have found the specific backup that has the deleted documents, press the "Restore" button to get the files to their original location.
6. If you see a prompt that Windows has already saved a file with the same name in the destination folder, you must hit the "Replace the file in the destination" option.

Restore Deleted Word Files from OneDrive Cloud Backup

With Version History, you can restore older versions of your files stored in OneDrive. It has all file types, including Microsoft 365 files, PDFs, CAD files, photos, videos, and more. You can also restore deleted OneDrive items from the recycle bin if you want to. You can use it to recover a deleted Word document quickly.

Step-by-step guide

1. Go to the OneDrive website- https://onedrive.live.com/, and log into your OneDrive account.
2. Select Settings > Options, and then select Restore your OneDrive from the left navigation.
3. Once you are on the Restore page, from the dropdown list, pick a date or tap on Custom date and time.
4. Review the recent activities you want to undo using the activity chart and activity feed.

Find a Deleted Word Document with Google Docs

Google Docs is a free online service that assists users in creating and editing documents and collaborating with others. It is cloud-based and thus preferred by many to manage their documents. Recently deleted files remain in the Trash folder of Google Drive for 30 days unless you have performed a "Delete Forever" action in Google Drive Trash.

Step-by-step guide

1. Log in to your Google account.
2. Click on the Drive icon and go to Google Drive.
3. Tap on Trash.
4. In the Trash folder, look for the recently word deleted files, then right-click on the deleted Google Docs and select Restore to recover the recently deleted Google Docs
5. Find the recovered Google docs by returning to My Drive.

Tips for preventing Word Documents from being lost in the first place

Even though we have discussed many ways to recover Word documents in Windows 11/10/8/7, you can easily avoid this missing word file issue in advance by following the preventive measures below.

• ⛔ Never save your Word documents in the OS Drive of your system because to fix any system failure, reformatting the drive & reinstallation the OS are the best solutions, and delete everything saved in the OS Drive.
• 💽 Keeping a second hard drive on your PC is another best way to keep your document safe. Even though your system fails, this drive wouldn't be affected.
• 📋 Take a consistent backup of your Word document using more than one backup option.
• ✔️ Before starting your work, enable the word document saving features like the versioning option or track changes.
• 📤 Try to take a cloud backup of your work so that you can retrieve your offline missing document from online storage.

Conclusion

Irrespective of how you lost your Word document, whether it was deleted accidentally, encrypted by malware and virus attack, or corrupted when trying to save it on a wrong partition, there are ways to recover deleted Word files in Windows 10, 11, and more.

This article has taken you through six of the most effective and comprehensive solutions. For example, you can retrieve a word document with Ctrl+Z, with a previous version, from a local backup, with Google Docs, or a OneDrive Cloud backup.

However, suppose you are armed with one of the most robust tools like the iBeesoft Data Recovery software. In that case, you can recover deleted Excel, Word Documents, PowerPoint, and more files easily and quickly with a high recovery rate.

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