2 Ways to Recover Unsaved iWork Document on Mac
Overview of Recovering Unsaved iWork Document
iWork is a suite of office applications created by Apple, including Pages, Numbers, and Keynotes, which can be considered as a Mac version of Microsoft Office.
Users who work on iWork documents and experience a sudden computer shutdown may lose their unsaved work. To recover lost files, users can use the Autosave feature, which periodically saves a copy of their work to iCloud. They can also use the "Recover" option in the iWork app to retrieve a previously autosaved version of their document.
How to Recover Unsaved iWork Document
After researching various methods, we found two solutions that can actually recover unsaved iWork documents. However, both of these methods require a specific condition: the document must have been previously saved on your Mac with a name, before data loss occurred. If this condition is not met, unfortunately, there is no way to retrieve the unsaved document, despite claims of data recovery from other sources.
Method 1. Recover Unsaved iWork Document from Autosave Folder
Autosave is a built-In Mac iWork applications, enabling the Autosave feature allows your documents to be automatically saved at least once per hour, as well as when you open, duplicate, lock, rename, or revert a document. If you've enabled Autosave and want to recover an unsaved iWork document, you can do so by accessing the Autosave folder. For example, if you're working with a Numbers document, you can follow the steps to recover an unsaved version from the Autosave folder.
Step 1. To access the Autosave folder location, go to your hard drive, then navigate to Users, followed by your home folder, then Library, Containers, and finally com.apple.iWork.Numbers.
Step 2. Right-click the "com.apple.iWork.Numbers." file, and select "Show Package Contents".
Step 3. To recover autosave information, navigate to the "Data" > "Library" > "Autosave" section, where you can find all the autosave files stored, and check if the desired file is present in this location.
Method 2. Recover Unsaved iWork Document with Deep Data Recovery
If you can't find the wanted files in the Autosave folder, or you didn't enable the Autosave feature, you can try using a third-party data recovery tool like Deep Data Recovery for Mac, which can help recover lost data due to accidental deletion, system crash, or partition loss.
Deep Data Recovery for Mac has been updated with a new feature that allows users to recover unsaved iWork documents as well as Microsoft Office documents. If you want to retrieve your lost data, follow the step-by-step guide to have a try.
Download Deep Data Recovery for Mac Here:
Step 1. Launch Deep Data Recovery. Select file types and click "Next" to begin the recovery process.
Step 2. To recover a lost unsaved file, hover your mouse over the device where the file was saved, and click "Scan" to initiate the file recovery process.
Step 3. After scanning, click on "Type" and expand "Unsaved Documents" to locate the file type that matches what you lost, such as Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Keynote, Pages, or Numbers.
Step 4. Double-click the unsaved file to preview it, select the correct version, and then click "Recover" to save the file to a secure location on Mac.
All You Should Know About iWork Recovery
Here we will tell you some must-know tips about iWork recovery. If you are confused with data recovery on Mac, this part might help you a little.
1. Where do I find autosave files on Mac?
Autosave files on Mac are stored in the following location: ~/Library/Saved Application State/ You can also find them in the "Recent Items" section of the Apple menu, or by searching for the app name in Spotlight. Additionally, autosave files are also stored in the app's own directory, which can be accessed by right-clicking on the app and selecting "Show Package Contents".
For Microsoft Word:
AutoSave folder location: ~/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Word/Data/Library/Preferences/AutoRecovery
To convert Microsoft Word documents to Excel or PowerPoint files, simply replace the word "Word" in the file name with "Excel" or "PowerPoint".
For iWork Numbers:
The Autosave folder location is on your hard drive, specifically in the Users folder, then your home folder, followed by Library, then Containers, then com.apple.iWork.Numbers, then Data, and finally Library, where the Autosave information is stored.
For other iWork documents, such as Pages and Keynotes, you only need to replace the word "Numbers" with the corresponding name.
2. Can Time Machine Recover Unsaved Files?
There are many tech guides that claim users can recover unsaved files from Time Machine backups, but unfortunately, this is not possible. Time Machine backups are stored on the Mac's hard drive, while unsaved files only exist in the computer's RAM, and Time Machine can only assist with recovering deleted files.
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