Menu
Jim Wilkerson tells me that he “opened a WordPad document that I have been working on for about two weeksthe last ten or so pages were not there.” You can’t recover an older version of an existing file the way you can. The file, as it existed last Wednesday, has almost certainly been overwritten by a later version.
But hopefully, there may be older versions of that file elsewhere. Here are three places to look.
Have a tech question? Ask PCWorld Contributing Editor Lincoln Spector.
Send your query to. Windows’ previous versions tool Windows has a tool that automatically saves old versions of your data files.if and when it works. To access this feature, go to the folder containing the file in question. Right-click the file and select Restore previous version.
Or you can select Properties and click the Previous Versions tab. Unfortunately, at least in my experience, this comes up empty more often than not. For one thing, Windows only saves these changes when a restore point is created, and it’s surprising how rarely that can happen. But there are other tricky configuration issues that can keep Windows from backing up old versions. In other words, if you’ve taken no other precautions, this might work, and it’s therefore worth trying. Cloud-based syncing and storage If you use a service such as Dropbox or Google Drive, and the file in question is located where it will automatically be uploaded to that service’s cloud server, you’re probably in luck. Most of these services save older versions of a file for about a month.
Dropbox lets you easily recover old versions. Right-click the file in question and select Use previous versions in the Dropbox section of the menu. This takes you to a webpage where you’ll find many versions of the file. You can download any one of them. Recovering an old version of a file from Google Drive is a little harder. Point your browser to, then click My Drive on the left pane (if it’s not already selected).
Find the file. Then click the three-dot menu icon on the toolbar and select Manage versions. Microsoft’s OneDrive has a similar way of working, but it has one big problem: It only saves older versions of Office file formats. In other words, you can retrieve an older version of a.docx file, but not a.jpg.
I might add that if you use cloud-based applications to create and edit your files, these may also save versions. For instance, in Google Docs, you can select File See revision history to see what older versions are available. Backup programs There’s really no excuse for not, and every file backup program worthy of the name stores multiple versions of files. (This isn’t necessarily the case with programs.) For instance, if you use Windows 10’s built-in file backup tool, you’ll find that the Previous Versions tool discussed above works just fineso long as you plug in your backup drive. Another example: If you use Carbonite’s cloud-based backup program, all you need do is right-click the file and select Carbonite Restore previous version for a dialog box where you can make your choice.
Open the Word file that you saved and now want to restore to its previous condition. Click on the 'File' tab and and select 'Info.' Select the version you want to open in the Versions list. Click the 'Restore' button when the file opens.
How do I recover a previous version of Excel or Word after saving files 'Does anyone know how to recover an earlier version of an excel spreadsheet or word document after saving as a file? Is it possible to recover a saved-over Excel or Word to a previous version? I got a very important Excel sheet saved by mistake yesterday after deleting some useful data. So I want to know whether I can still get the file restored back to an earlier build? And how about to restore saved Word file to a previous version?' Quick Fix: Press Ctrl + Z to recover Excel/Word document to an earlier version If you've saved over an Excel or Word document by mistake, and haven't close the file yet, you can directly press: Ctrl + Z on your keyboard so to revert saved Excel/Word file to an earlier build. If you've already closed the Excel or Word document after saving as a file, don't worry.
You can try either one of the offered methods below to restore the previous version of Excel/Word on Windows 10/8/7 with ease now. Notice: Method 1, 2, 3 will guide you to manually restore previous version of Excel/Word on Windows PC.
If you've deleted the earlier file of an Excel or Word document, you can apply Method 4 to restore to the previous version of Excel/Word files deleted days or weeks ago. Restore an earlier version of Excel/Word with File Explorer Step 1.
Open File Explorer and locate the Excel/Word file; Step 2. Right-click on the Excel or Word file and select Properties; Step 3. Click the Previous Version tab, find and the earlier version of Excel or Word file; Step 4. Click Restore to get an earlier version of Excel/Word file back. Restore the previous version of Excel/Word from.TMP file Microsoft Office has this feature that it would automatically save temp files for the file that you are editing. So you can try to find the.TMP file to get an earlier version of Excel or Word file back: 1.
Follow the temp file folder location on your PC and find the Excel/Word temp files with.TMP extension:. For Windows 7 users: C: Users name AppData Roaming Microsoft Excel or C: Users name AppData Roaming Microsoft Word. For Windows 8/10 users: C: Users AppData Local Microsoft Office UnsavedFiles 2. Locate and find the temporary excel or word files begin with ' $' or ' ' and end with “.TMP”, select the right version of Excel/Word temp file by date, then copy and save to another safe spot by changing the extension from.TMP to.XLS/.XLSX or.DOC/.DOCX. Recover earlier version of Excel/Word with Microsoft Office built-in tool If you've saved the file, try below tips to restore Excel/Word to an earlier version: Step 1. Open the file you are working on; Step 2.
Go to File and click Info; Step 3. Under Manage Documents, click the file labeled (When I closed without saving). In the bar at the top of the file, click Restore to overwrite any previously saved versions. If you haven't saved the file, try below guidelines to get Excel/Word file earlier version back: 1. Click File Info Manage Document Recover Unsaved Documents in Word/ Recover Unsaved Workbooks in Excel; 2. Select the file and click Open; 3.
In the bar at the top of the file, click Save As to save the file. Restore the previous version of Excel/Word files deleted days or weeks ago If you've already deleted the earlier build of Excel or Word file days or weeks ago, don't worry. All you need is just a powerful file recovery freeware for help. Will get the deleted previous version of Excel or Word file from your PC or storage devices by simple clicks.
Just follow to see how to get your lost previous Excel/Word file back now.