My autosave was on but edits to a document stopped saving randomly about 20 minutes into my hour of work on a document. How do I recover the edits?

To recover the edits you made to your document, you can try the following methods:

1. Check the Document Recovery Pane: Restart Word to see if it opens the Document Recovery task pane. If any AutoRecover files are found, they will be listed there. You can double-click on the file name to open it and then save it as a .docx file.
2. Search for AutoRecover Files: If the Document Recovery pane does not appear, you can manually search for AutoRecover files. Word typically saves these files automatically. You can find them by:
   • Closing and reopening Word, which prompts it to search for AutoRecover files.
   • If you suspect the files are stored in a temporary format, you can search for files with a .tmp extension or files that start with a tilde (~) in the Windows search bar.
3. Check OneDrive or SharePoint: If your document was saved or synced to OneDrive or SharePoint, you may be able to restore a previous version of the document. Check the recycle bin or version history in those services.
4. Adjust AutoRecover Settings: To prevent this issue in the future, ensure that AutoRecover is set to save every five minutes or less. You can adjust this setting in Word under File > Options > Save.

If none of these methods work, unfortunately, you may not be able to recover the lost edits. It's essential to regularly save your work manually to avoid losing significant changes.

References:

• How to recover unsaved Word documents
• How AutoSave impacts add-ins and macros