Two Ways to Recover Unsaved iWork Documents on a Mac

Overview of Recovering Unsaved iWork Documents

iWork is the name of a suite of office applications created by Apple, which includes Pages, Numbers, and Keynote. In general, iWork can be thought of as Apple's answer to Microsoft Office for the Mac.

If a user is working on their iWork document and their computer suddenly shuts down, they won't have time to save the document. Hence, they might wonder how to recover lost files in such situations.

How to Recover an Unsaved iWork Document

After examining all the supposed remedies, we found only two genuine methods to recover unsaved iWork documents. However, both of these methods rely on one critical condition: before the data was lost, you must have given the file a name and saved it somewhere on your Mac. If you didn't, no amount of boasting from other guides about their data recovery prowess will help you retrieve the unsaved document.

Method 1: Recover an Unsaved iWork Document from the Auto-Save Folder

Automatic Save is a built-in feature of iWork apps for Mac. When enabled, your iWork documents will be automatically saved at least once per hour. It also happens when you open, duplicate, lock, rename, or revert a document. Follow the steps below to recover an unsaved iWork document from the Auto Save folder. This example uses a Numbers document.

Step 1: Go to the Auto Save folder: [Your hard drive] > Users > [Your Home folder] > Library > Containers > com.apple.iWork.Numbers.

Step 2: Right-click (or Control-click) on the "com.apple.iWork.Numbers" file and choose "Show Package Contents."

Step 3: Click “File” > “Recover Unsaved Work.” This will open a window with all of your AutoRecover files. See if the file you want to recover is there.

Method 2: Recover Unsaved iWork Documents with a Data Recovery Wizard Tool

If you can't find the file you need in the AutoSave folder, or if you didn't have AutoSave turned on, you might try using a third-party data recovery tool like tools Data Recovery Wizard for Mac. It's a professional Mac data recovery tool that can help you get your data back after accidental deletion, system crash, or lost partitions.

Recently, Data Recovery Wizard for Mac added a new feature to recover unsaved iWork and Microsoft Office documents. If you want to get back your unsaved data, follow the steps below.

Download the Mac Data Recovery Wizard tool here:

Note: You can create a backup by first clicking Disk Backup on the left. You can then recover data from the backup image when a disk is damaged or when unsaved documents on the disk are accidentally deleted or lost.

Step 1. Select Disk

Start Disk Drill for Mac. Hover the mouse over the device where you had the unsaved files and click Search for Lost Files.

Step 2: Select the unsaved document.

When the scan is finished, click “Type,” then expand “Unsaved Documents.” Click on the specific file type that you weren't able to save – Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Keynote, Pages, or Numbers.

Step 3. Preview and Recover Unsaved Files

Double-click to preview an unsaved file, select the correct version, and click “Recover” to save the file to another secure location on your Mac.

All About Recovering iWork Documents

Here, we will walk you through some essential tips for iWork recovery. This might come in handy if you are confused about data recovery on your Mac.

1. Where can I find autosaved files on my Mac?

When most Mac users want to recover their data, they face one major question: “Where can I find autosaved files on my Mac?” We have all the answers right here:

For Microsoft Word:

Auto Save file location: ~/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Word/Data/Library/Preferences/AutoRecovery

For Microsoft Excel or PowerPoint files, simply substitute “Excel” or “PowerPoint” for “Word.”

For iWork Numbers:

Auto-save location: [Your hard drive] > Users > [Your Home folder] > Documents > Containers > com.apple.iWork.Numbers > Data > Library > Autosave Information

For other iWork documents, such as Pages or Keynote files, substitute the appropriate name for Numbers.

2. Can Time Machine recover unsaved files?

There are many how-to guides that claim you can try to recover unsaved files from a Time Machine backup. Can you? Actually, no. You can't recover unsaved files from a Time Machine backup because Time Machine backups live on your Mac's hard drive, and unsaved files only exist in RAM. Time Machine is useful for recovering deleted Mac files from the Trash, but not much else.