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Word Autosave Location: Where Is It And How to Access It

Make sure you backup your files in order to prevent data loss.

5 min. read

Updated onSeptember 22, 2024

updated onSeptember 22, 2024

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Microsoft Wordis one of the most popular text processors in the world, and millions of users use it on daily basis. Creating documents inWordis fairly simple.

Sometimes, you can forget to save your documents, so you might find search for the Word autosave location.

In order to preventfileloss, many users are using the autosave feature that will save your documents in specified intervals.

In case yourWord document cannot be saved, check out our solutions for the issue.

How to access autosave files in Word?

If you’re using the feature, today we’re going to show you how to access Word autosave location onWindows 10.

1. Access Word autosave location through the MS Word settings

AutoRecover feature inWordis extremely useful because it will save yourfilesin specified intervals and prevent data loss.

This feature is useful if you accidentally forget to save yourfile, or if a system crash occurs.

Alternatively, you can use a tool listed in our fresh article about thebest software to prevent data loss.

To turn on the autosave feature, you need to do the following:

After you locate Word autosave location on yourPC, you need to openWord, navigate to that directory, locate thefileit automatically saves and open it inWord.

Keep in mind that this directory might be hidden on yourPC, especially if it’s located in the AppData folder.

To quickly access this folder, you can simply paste its location into File Explorer’s address bar.

If you want to access the folder manually, just follow the path, but be sure to go to the View tab. Then, check theHidden itemsoption so you can reveal the hidden AppData folder.

After doing that, you’ll be able to accessWordautosave location without any problems.

2. Check the AppData folder to find the Word autosave location

By default, Word’s autosave location is the AppData folder. There are several locations where MicrosoftWordcan save yourfiles. Usually, the autosave location is one of these two:C:\Users\Your_username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WordC:\Users\Your_username\AppData\Local\Temp

Newer versions ofWorduse a different location, and you can find all your unsavedfilesin here:C:\Users\Your_username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Office\UnsavedFiles

There are different types ofWordfilesin these folders, and usually, these files will have a tilde or a squiggly line before the file name. Most of these files will have a.tmpextension and a 4-digit number.

For example, aWorddocument will look like this~wrdxxxx.tmp. The temp document file will look like ~wrfxxxx.tmp, while the auto recoveryfilewill look like~wraxxxx.tmp.

Lastly, complete auto-recovery files will not have a .tmp extension and they’ll use the .wbkextension instead. After you find one of thosefiles, simply open it inWordand save them.

3. Access Word autosave location using Recover Unsaved Documents

If you accidentally close Word or if it crashes for some reason, you can open the autosave location by using the Recover Unsaved Documents option.

It is built-in on Microsoft Word and helps you restore any files which you was not able to save before closing the app.

Open Microsoft Word on your PC.
Go toFilein the top left corner of the UI.
ChooseRecentfrom the list of options.
Click onRecover Unsaved Documents.
You can also navigate toFile>Info>Manage Versions>Recover Unsaved Documentsin order to access the autosave location.
After finding the automatically savedfile, open it and choose theSave asoption to save it.

4. Access Word autosave location through the document directory

Sometimes autosave location is set to the same directory where you save yourfile. However, autosavefilesare usually hidden and in order to see them, you need to follow these steps:

As you can see,Wordsometimes saves unsavedfilesto the same directory in which your currently openfileis stored in order to make it easily accessible.

If you didn’t save changes to yourWord document, be sure to try this method.

5. Search for .wbk or .asdfilesto find the Word autosave location

AlthoughWordautomatically saves yourfiles, sometimes it can be hard to find the autosave location. If you can’t find the location on your own, you might want to search for a specific file extension.

Word autosavefilesusually use .wbk or .asd file extension, and in most cases, the Word autosave directory will have thesefilesin it. To search your system for thesefiles, do the following:

If you can’t find any .wbk or .asdfiles, be sure to search your system for .tmpfiles. Keep in mind that .tmpfilesaren’t strictly related toWord, so some of them might be a part of different applications.

For more information on what temporary Wordfileslook like, be sure to checkSolution 2.

Losing your datacan be a major problem. Because of that,Microsoft Wordusually saves your documents to its autosave location. Should you face a similar situation in Excel, we knowwhere the autosave excel files are located.

Even if you forget to save your document, you can restore it by accessing the Word autosave location and opening the unsaved documents inWord.

Word Autosave Location: Where Is It And How to Access It#

How to access autosave files in Word?#

1. Access Word autosave location through the MS Word settings#

2. Check the AppData folder to find the Word autosave location#

3. Access Word autosave location using Recover Unsaved Documents#

4. Access Word autosave location through the document directory#

5. Search for .wbk or .asdfilesto find the Word autosave location#