If you are a Microsoft Word user, you must press "Save" from time to time to make sure your updates are saved. However, no matter how disciplined you are, there is always a chance to lose the file that is in your hands.

Whether it's due to power outages, software malfunctions, or just a slight oversight, don't worry and stay calm. There are a number of different ways to recover a missing Word document.

Version 2013 - 2016
The 2013 and 2016 versions of Word have a feature designed to recover unsaved documents.

1. Click the “File” tab and select “Document management”. This will take you to the dashboard.

2. Click the button labeled "Manage Document" to see a drop-down menu with several options.

3. Select “Recover Unsaved Documents” to open a new window that shows you a list of unsaved Word documents. If the file you are looking for is listed, open it.

Version 2007-2010
If you are using an older version of Word, you can use the same program to search for backup copies of the missing document.

1. To get started, open WordPress and click the File tab (if using Word 2010), or the Start button (if using Word 2007).

2. From here, select "Open". This will open the Windows Explorer window. Select the location where you last saved the document in question. For most people, the place will be My Documents.

3. Next to the 'File name' box, you'll see a drop-down list of file types. Choose "All file types."

4. Select the file you are looking for, open it and save it correctly.

other ways
If the methods described above don't work, you'll need to use other methods to recover your document. In this case, you will have to search through Temproray saved file to recover lost data.

Temporary files are files that are temporarily saved during the creation of a new file. These files contain information about the file that was created. If you lose an entire Word document or even part of it, there is a possibility to retrieve this information from the temporary file. Temporary files end with the ".tmp" file extension.

To find these files, click the Start button. Note that Windows 10 users can simply start typing in the taskbar's built-in search box.

In the search box, type ".tmp" and press Enter. If you're using Windows 10, you'll need to type "% temp%."

This will open a window with all the results. Find files that share the dates and times that you edited the document.

Some temporary files start with "˜". To find these files, follow the steps above, replacing ".tmp" with "˜".

If you find a temporary file that you suspect may be what you are looking for but that does not appear to be working, the file may be corrupted. Fortunately, Microsoft has detailed documentation on how to deal with corrupted files and how to recover information from them.

Prevention is better than cure
To save time and effort in searching for temporary files, you can adjust Word to make sure you don't lose any unsaved work. To do this, open the Word program, click the "File" tab and select "Options". If you have Word 2007, click the Start button in Office, and then click the button labeled "Word Options".

In the new window that opens, click "Save" in the column on the left. You will see an option titled "Auto save information every ** minutes", make sure the box next to this option is checked.

Then, set the AutoSave time for the document that suits you.You can set AutoSave to work every 5 minutes, for example.