I really need help recovering my dissertation files in Word. I did save them, but I'm in a bit of a panic right now. Earlier in my writing, I had a similar scare at around 1500 words, but I managed to retrieve it then. Since then, I've made it a point to save my work regularly.
I have two important files for my dissertation—the main document and a table for data collection. Unfortunately, I had to go to the hospital unexpectedly for two weeks, during which I only had access to Netflix and YouTube. Now that I'm back home, I can't find my dissertation files at all! They aren't in my Dissertation folder in Finder, nor do they appear in OneDrive, and I thought I had saved them in both locations.
I'm quite far along in my writing, almost halfway through, and starting over is not an option during my recovery. I don't have Time Machine set up, and I've previously recovered a version using Terminal, but I don't remember the steps. Any guidance would be greatly appreciated!
3 Answers
Also, don’t forget to look in Word under Open > Recent Files. Your document might still pop up there.
Have you checked OneDrive online? Sometimes things can appear there even if they’re not visible on your device.
I tried that! It doesn't show up online either. I even attempted to restore my OneDrive, but it's like it never existed.
You might want to look in Word's temporary file location. It sometimes saves unsaved items there. You can check out this guide from Microsoft on how to recover lost or unsaved documents.
I checked that too, and unfortunately, it's not showing up.