Word (Wiki) Recovery consists of the software for recovering lost word documents due to accidental deletion, disk formatting, operating system crashes, etc. It can also recover word documents from damaged or inaccessible disks/partitions.
If you want the all-in-one Office Recovery Software, please browse our Office Recovery.
Generally, Word Recovery Software can only recover deleted/lost word documents. If you want to repair damaged word documents, please browse our Word Repair.

Contents

1 Free vs. Paid
2 Recovery from Temp Files
3 Tips on Word Recovery
4 Editor's remarks
5 Best Freeware
6 Top Shareware

Free vs. Paid

FREE	PAID
Not any specific Word Recovery Freeware, but some comprehensive recovery freeware support word recovery Most only supports DOC files Limited functions, only suitable for recovering accidentally deleted files	Full support for both DOC files and DOCX files, some even able to recover RTF files and ODT 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 word documents. To recover lost word documents due to the simple human errors like accidental deletion of files, you can first try freeware.

Tips on Word Recovery from Temp Files

MS Office products can automatically save files every 10 minutes by default. If the word documents are lost due to accidental close or unexpected quitting, users may be able to recover lost files from temporary files. Here are the simplest solutions to recover files from temporary files. Wish you a good luck and succeed on your first try.

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

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 Word Recovery1. To avoid any writing process on the drive where you lost the word documents and keep the lost/deleted documents recoverable, make sure installing word recovery software and recovering documents into another drive. If there is only one drive, please prepare an external hard drive to install software and store recovered documents.
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 Word Recovery Software
Re-rank the products by brands reputation, product downloads, and product sales.
List the available discount coupons/deals for you, so that you can skip the time-consuming searching for a coupon and enjoy discount directly.