Office (Wiki) Recovery consists of the software for recovering lost office files due to accidental deletion, hard disk damage, operating system crash, etc. It can also recover office files from formatted/repartitioned hard drive or corrupted/inaccessible disk.

Office Recovery Software focuses on recovering deleted/lost Microsoft Office files, including files of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc. This filter includes the all-in-one office recovery programs only, if you’re looking for the specific office documents recovery software, please browse our Word Recovery / Excel Recovery / PowerPoint Recovery.

If you want to repair damaged office files, please browse our Word Repair / Excel Repair / PowerPoint Repair / Publisher Repair.

Contents

1 Free vs. Paid
2 Office recovery from temporary files
3 Tips on Office Recovery
3 Editor's remarks
4 Best Freeware
5 Top Shareware

Free vs. Paid

FREE	PAID
Not any specific Office Recovery Freeware, but some comprehensive recovery freeware with support for office recovery, much lower data recovery success rate compared to specific office recovery software Most only supports Microsoft Office 97-2003 files Limited functions, only suitable for recovering accidentally deleted files	Full support for files created with all versions of Microsoft Office (including the latest version), some even able to recover OpenOffice files Compatible with the latest operating system Powerful data recovery functions, capable of recovering lost files due to various reasons A higher data recovery speed and success rate Convenient to use, detailed tutorials available Good technical support
Referring to this table, you can choose between freeware and shareware based on your demands. We've listed the most popular data recovery freeware which is able to recover office files. If you just accidentally deleted your office files, you can first try freeware.

Office recovery from temporary files

According to Microsoft, users may be able to recover lost office files from temporary files. But if you do not have enough technical background knowledge and experiences, it is very likely to make mistakes, which may reduce the chance of successful recovery. So if you are not an IT expert, we suggest you use Office recovery software directly to avoid permanent loss of your office file.

Here are the simplest solutions to recover different office files from temporary files. Wish you a good luck and succeed on your first try.

Word Recovery from Temporary Files
Step 1: Show hidden files (How-tos)
Step 2: Find out temporary files

Temporary files may locate in one of these folders
Windows XP:
1) "C:\ Documents and Settings\%username%\Application Data\Microsoft\Word"
2) "C:\ Documents and Settings\%username%\Local Settings\Temp"
Windows 7 and above
"C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Word"
"C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Word"
"C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Temp"
After getting into the right location, look for the following file types ( "xxxx" is a random number):
• A word document file will look like ~wrdxxxx.tmp
• A temp document file will look like ~wrfxxxx.tmp
• A temporary file for AutoRecovery will look like ~wraxxxx.tmp
• An AutoRecovery file will look like AutoRecovery save of .asd
• An AutoRecovery file that is complete will have the extension of .wbk (AutoRecovery files may not locate in temp folders, and you can search for "*.wbk" files in all folders)
Description of how Word creates temporary files from Microsoft

Step 3: Open temporary files
Copy these temporary files to a new directory in another drive, and open them one by one in Word.
For other recovery solutions, please refer to Microsoft support: How to recover a lost Word document

Excel Recovery from Temporary Files
Step 1: Show hidden files (How-tos)
Step 2: Find out temporary files

Temporary files may locate in one of these folders
Windows XP:
"C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\Local Settings\Temp"
"C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\Application Data\Microsoft\Excel"
Windows 7 and above
"C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Temp"
"C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Excel"
• An excel temp file is saved as “xxx.tmp” or “~dfxxxx.tmp” ("xxxx" is a number).
• An AutoRecovery file will look like xxx.xlb

Step 3: Open temporary files
Copy these temporary files to a new directory in another drive, and open them one by one in Excel.

PowerPoint Recovery from Temporary Files
Step 1: Show hidden files (How-tos)
Step 2: Find out temporary files

Temporary files may locate in these folders
Windows XP:
"C :\ Documents and Settings\%username%\Local Settings\Temp"
Windows 7 and above
"C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Temp"
The temp files are saved as “pptxxx.tmp”, where "xxx" represents a random number automatically generated by PowerPoint

Step 3: Open temporary files
Copy these temporary files to a new directory in another drive, and open them one by one in PowerPoint.
Suggested Article from The Microsoft Knowledge Base:
PPT97: How to Recover an Unsaved Presentation from a .tmp File

NOTE:
1. There is no guarantee that the temp file is a good copy of the unsaved file.
2. If the temp file can not be opened, then the file cannot be recovered in this way.
3. The location of autosave files depends on the settings of your MS Office. You can view and set the location in "File Tab - Options - Save - AutoRecover File location"

Tips on Office Recovery1. To avoid any writing process on the drive where you lost the office files and keep the lost/deleted files recoverable, make sure installing office recovery software and recovering files into another drive. If there is only one drive, please prepare an external hard drive to install software and store recovered files.
2. As for the different data loss cases, you may try different software to select a suitable one before you make a final decision.

Our editors have done the following work to save your time:

List all the popular Office Recovery Software (including the best freeware)
Re-rank the products by brands reputation, product downloads, and product sales.
List all the valid discount coupons/deals, so that you can enjoy discounts directly instead of time-consuming searching for a coupon.