How to recover a file after a program crashed

Step by step

1. Restart the program once and read what it offers

   Word, Excel and PowerPoint show a Document Recovery pane; Photoshop and Illustrator reopen recovered documents; Notepad++ and VS Code restore unsaved tabs. Save each recovered item with Save As before doing anything else.

2. Do not save over the damaged original

   If the original file now opens empty or broken, do not save over it. Copy it to another folder first. A broken file is still useful for repair, an overwritten one is not.

3. Check the program's recovery folder

   Office keeps copies in %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\Office\UnsavedFiles and %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Word or Excel. Adobe programs use AutoRecover or DataRecovery folders under %APPDATA%\Adobe. Notepad++ uses %APPDATA%\Notepad++\backup and VS Code uses %APPDATA%\Code\Backups.

4. Look at temporary files and downloads

   Type %TEMP% in the File Explorer address bar and sort by date. Large .tmp files from the time of the crash can contain your work. An interrupted browser download stays as a .crdownload or .part file in the download folder.

5. Run FileFix Ultimate's finder

   The unsaved and auto-recovery file finder checks these locations for many programs at once, plus Recent entries whose file is missing. It copies results to a folder you choose and does not write to the drive it reads.

6. Repair or scan if needed

   If the recovered file is damaged, use Damaged file repair on a copy. If the recovery copy was already deleted, a deleted file scan of the drive can still find it, especially on a hard drive.

Why a crash can damage the file itself

When a program crashes while saving, the file on disk can be left half written. Office documents, ZIP archives and PDFs then open with an error because the index at the end of the file is missing. Many of these files can be rebuilt, because most of the content was already written.

Programs that save safely write to a temporary file first and swap it in at the end. After a crash during that swap, the temporary file may hold the newest version while the original holds the previous one. Both are worth keeping.

Where common programs keep recovery copies

Microsoft Office: AutoRecover and unsaved copies, by default every ten minutes. Hancom Office: .asv auto-save files and optional .bak backups. Windows 11 Notepad: unsaved tabs in its TabState folder. Notepad++ and VS Code: backup folders used by session restore.

Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and Premiere Pro: auto-save or recovery folders, often enabled by default. Browsers: partial downloads that can sometimes be resumed from the download list. The exact folders can change between versions, so the program's own settings are the most reliable source.

Prevent the next loss

Turn on AutoSave or AutoRecover in every program you rely on and shorten the interval. Keep work on a folder with version history, and save to a local disk rather than a USB stick that might be pulled out during a crash.

When it won't work

• The program had no auto-recovery feature, or it was turned off.
• Work done after the last automatic save was only in memory and is lost with the crash.
• Recovery copies were deleted and their space reused, or erased by TRIM on an SSD.

How FileFix Ultimate helps

• One search covers Office, Hancom, Notepad, Notepad++, VS Code and Adobe recovery locations, temporary files and partial downloads.
• Recent files whose original is now missing are listed, with a one-click scan of the drive for that deleted file.
• Everything is read-only; results are copied to a folder you choose.
• Damaged Office files can be rebuilt, or their values and text salvaged into a new file.

Frequently asked questions