The Microsoft 365 program has enabled people to create multiple PowerPoint presentations on a regular basis. Whether you are working on Excel or creating a business presentation on PowerPoint, it requires a lot of work and effort from your end. Imagine hitting the delete button accidentally and having the unsaved files deleted. If you had saved the file before making a few changes, you can use the saved version to make those changes again.
But, what if you hadn’t saved the file you are working on? What if you are almost done with the presentation and are about to save it, but your computer crashes? The good news is it is absolutely possible to recover your unsaved PowerPoint presentation.
Whether your computer switched off due to the power failure or you simply pressed the delete button accidentally, there are quite a few effective and easy methods that can help you retrieve the unsaved file. If you have ever got your PowerPoint presentation deleted from your mobile, here’s how you can recover it in simple ways.
Sometimes, when people are done creating a PowerPoint presentation, they hit the close button located on the top right corner of the screen. Fortunately, Microsoft displays a warning message that asks the user to confirm before closing the page. It also displays a few options that show the user has not saved changes yet and whether they would like to confirm leaving PowerPoint without saving the changes. Despite the warning message, people might close the file without saving it. That’s how they lose a considerable amount of data.
How to Recover Unsaved PowerPoint File?
Windows save many unsaved files on a temp folder, so there is a chance it must have saved your deleted file on this folder temporarily. To retrieve the file from this folder, open File Explorer and type PPT*.tmp in the search bar. If the file was saved in this folder, it will show up in the search result. You could easily rename the file by adding the .ppt at the end.
You must also open the file to know if it’s the unsaved version that had gotten deleted from your computer. You can recover this file by saving it to the “document” or another location on your computer.
1. Try Integrated PowerPoint Feature
If you are using Office Version 2010, you will get an opportunity to retrieve an unsaved presentation you had created on PowerPoint. Here’s how to do that:
- From the presentation program, select Open, and then Recent
- Locate the option “Recover unsaved presentations”
- This will direct you to a folder that has all the saved drafts of the files and presentations you had deleted.
- It also saves the files with unsaved changes.
So, if you manage to find the file with the unsaved changes, open it, make the necessary changes, and keep working on the presentation.
2. Use Ctrl + Z
Whether you have erased the presentation or some part of it got deleted, there is always an option to retrieve the lost data by using the Ctrl and Z combo. Use these keys in conjunction to restore the old version of the deleted file easily. You can easily recover the deleted version of the file with simple clicks. Make sure that this trick works only when you have not deleted the file and closed the presentation.
3. Use Cloud Storage
The reason why experts recommend you save PowerPoint presentations on Google Drive and One Drive is that these cloud storage apps allow you to recover the unsaved files easily. If you can’t find a file on PowerPoint, you will surely be able to locate it in Dropbox and other such cloud storage apps.
4. Find it in the Recycle Bin
Usually, people delete the outdated files that will no longer use from the PowerPoint just to keep their system clear and free of unwanted files. However, if you have deleted an important file along with other presentations, you could retrieve it from the recycle bin. Now, this option is for the deleted files that were saved on your computer.
Open recycle bin on your computer and type the name of the file in the search bar. There is a good chance you will locate the file through this method given that you have not deleted it from recycle bin.
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