Recover Unsaved PowerPoints

Remember that Sunday after hours when you finished that perfect PowerPoint presentation you’ve worked on all the weekend for your annual review meeting and closed it without saving it? 

Wasn’t it awful spending all night remaking it? Well, it didn’t had to be like that. The following tips will help you avoiding that from happening again!

The following are the steps to recover your unsaved PowerPoint files inadvertently closed:

1. Open the PowerPoint application.
2. Click the File tab.
3. Click Recent.
4. Scroll to the bottom of your “Recent Documents”, then click “Recover Unsaved Presentations”.
5. Your saved drafts folder will open in a new window. Select the file and then click Open.
6. In the business bar at the top of the file, click Save As to save your file to your computer. 

Here is how to enable AutoRecover and AutoSave to protect your PowerPoint files:

1. Click the File tab.
2. Under Help, click Options.
3. Click Save.
4. Make sure the “Save AutoRecover information every x minutes” check box is selected.
5. Make sure the “Keep the last autosaved version if I close without saving” check box is selected.

Another way to access these files is the following:

1. Open the PowerPoint application.
2. Open a new file or any existing file.
3. Click the File tab.
4. Click Info.
5. Click Manage Versions.
6. Click Recover Unsaved Presentations.
7. You will see the list of your unsaved files. Select the file and click Open.
8. In the business bar at the top of the file, click Save As to save your file to your computer.

That’s not all, there is another way:

If you are a Windows 7/8 and 10 you can also browse to one of the following file locations to open the file, depending on your operating system (please remember that these file locations cannot be changed): C:\Users\User_Name\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Office\UnsavedFiles

Anyway, to be sure you don’t lose your latest work again, always remember to click Save (or CTRL+S) often or save a redundant copy to the cloud, just in case