Stepwise Tutorial: How to Recover Unsaved Google Docs

This post introduces how to recover unsaved Google Docs. You can recover the unsaved Google Docs from version history or Offline preview. Besides, we also offer you several methods to recover deleted Google Docs.

By @Hester Last Updated December 11, 2024

How do I recover a Google Doc that was not saved?

 

I was busy writing a resume of me this morning, and it takes me over an hour to complete it. But when I had added all the details in each section and was ready for a preview, the content just vanished! How to recover unsaved Google Docs?”

- Question from Google Forum

How to recover unsaved Google Docs [3 options]

Google Docs is a Gsuite tool that functions as an online word processor, allowing you and your collaborators to create and format documents. 

Google Docs may store your work of every modification automatically to Google Drive by default, protecting your work from any data loss issues. But it not works well all the time due to weak Internet connection, full drive storage, etc.

In this part, we will discuss how to recover an unsaved Google doc.

Option 1. Recover unsaved Google Docs from version history

As we don't know when the autosave occurred, the most effective and hopeful option to restore an unsaved Google doc is to look through its version history.

Step 1. Open Google doc, click File from the top menu and click Version history > See version history.

Step 2. Then you can see the auto-saved editions of your file, locate the version you want to restore, and click the three dots icon > Restore this version.

Option 2. Recover unsaved Google Docs from Offline preview

How to get back unsaved Google Docs? There is another option in File called Make available offline, which means you can sync files to a cloud drive, like create an automatic backup.

If you enabled this feature before, then you can now recover the unsaved doc from your Google Drive.

Step 1. On your computer, go to Google Drive and sign in.

Step 2. Click Ready for offline icon from the upper right corner.

Step 3. Click Offline preview, then you can see the documents, double-click on the target one to open it in a new window, then you can continue with editing or save a copy.

Option 3. Contact Google support team for help

If you still have a problem with how to recover unsaved Google Docs, you could also ask the Google support team for help.

Step 1. On your computer, go to Google Drive Help Center.

Step 2. Scroll down to click Contact us.

Step 2. Type in your problem in detail and click Next step.

Step 3. Select your Preferred language and click the Email.

Bonus tip: How to recover deleted Google Docs [3 options]

We often see accidental file deletion among users. In this part, we are going to tell you how to recover deleted Google Docs.

Option 1. Recover recently deleted Google Docs from Trash

When your Google Docs go missing, the first thing you should do is check Google Trash. The trash will hold all of the deleted data for 30 days. You can simply restore recently deleted Google Docs during these 30 days.

Step 1. On your computer, go to Google Drive and sign in.

Step 2. Click Trash from the left panel, and locate and right-click your deleted file to Restore.

Option 2. Recover recently deleted Google Docs with Google account

If you deleted the file from the last 25 days and didn’t find it in the trash, then you can restore all the data on that day with your account.

Step 1. Log in to your G Suite Admin account and click Users.

Step 2. Find which cloud you restore the files before, right-click it and click More > Restore data.

Step 3. Select the date range when you deleted the file, then click RESTORE.

Option 3. Recover recently & permanently deleted docs via MyRecover

If Google Docs synced with your local computer, then you can use a Windows recovery tool like MyRecover to safely and quickly retrieve your lost files.

As a reliable and user-friendly Windows Data Recovery Software, MyRecover can recover your lost/deleted data from Windows within only 3 easy steps.

In addition to Google Docs deletion, you can also use this application to recover data from disk formatting, system crash, virus attack, etc.

Download Software Windows 11/10/8/7/Server
Secure Download

Download and install MyRecover on the computer, and follow the next instructions to recover deleted files.

Step 1. Launch MyRecover. Hover the mouse over the partition saved deleted files before, and click Scan.

Step 2. The software will scan your partition at high speed, then you can see the list of your deleted files. (You can directly find the target files you want to recover by typing the file name in the search box.)

Step 3. Tick all the files you want to recover and click Restore x files to get them back.

Conclusion

This post introduce how to recover unsaved Google Docs. You can easily get the unsaved docs from version history or Offline preview. Besides, we also introduces how to recover deleted Google Docs in several ways. To recover the data quickly and safely, we recommend you use MyRecover.

Furthermore, to strongly secure your data, we advise using Windows backup software to create regular backups.