Last week, I spent two days designing my PowerPoint presentations with great shapes, animations, images, tables, word art, basic shapes, stars, etc. Unfortunately, my PowerPoint crashed and was unsaved, and I didn’t have extra time to make such a valuable PowerPoint again. How can I recover unsaved PowerPoint on Mac?
Many users have similar problems, and I am not an exception.
To recover PowerPoint files that are not saved on Mac or lost for unknown reasons, there are 6 ways, no matter whether you want to recover unsaved or deleted PowerPoint on Mac in Office 2011, 2016, or 2018. Also, to cover all the topics about PowerPoint recovery on Mac, we include the solutions to recover the previous versions of PowerPoint on Mac in case of need.
To avoid the PowerPoint file from being overwritten, please do not add new data or install Mac Data Recovery software on the hard drive where you lost the PowerPoint presentation. Just follow the below ways, you will recover unsaved PowerPoint on Mac and get your lost or deleted PPT file back.
How to Recover Unsaved PowerPoint on Mac (2007/2011/2016/2018/2020/2022/2023)
Method 1: Use PowerPoint AutoSave on Mac if Enabled
What is PowerPoint AutoSave?
Microsoft Office has a fantastic feature called AutoSave, which is built to automatically save a temporary PowerPoint copy periodically. The feature is turned on by default and the default save interval is 10 minutes. That is to say, not only limited to Microsoft Office PowerPoint, Office Word and Excel are also featured with AutoSave, to restore office files when accidents happen.
How to Enable or Disable PowerPoint AutoSave on Mac?
By default, the AutoSave feature is ON in Microsoft Office. However, to make sure you can recover PowerPoint files that are not saved on Mac with AutoSave, you can check if the feature is enabled, or enable/disable it according to your needs.
- Launch PowerPoint for Mac, and go to Preferences.
- Go to “Save” in the toolbars, and make sure the box before “Save AutoRecovery info every” is checked.
- Then you can tweak the settings, such as AutoSave intervals.
Where are PowerPoint AutoSave Files Stored on Mac?
- For Office 2008:
/Users/username/Library/Application Support/ Microsoft/Office/Office 2008 AutoRecovery
- For Office 2011:
/Users/username/Library/Application Support/ Microsoft/Office/Office 2011 AutoRecovery
- For Office 2016 & 2018:
/Users/Library/Containers/com.Microsoft.Powerpoint/Data/Library/Preferences/AutoRecovery
The amount of new information that the recovered PPT file contains depends on how frequently a Microsoft Office program saves the recovery file. For example, if the recovery file is saved only every 15 minutes, your recovered PPT file won’t contain your last 14 minutes of work before the power failure or other problems occur. You can also use the above method to recover Word documents on Mac and recover Excel files not saved.
Steps to Recover Unsaved PowerPoint on Mac (Office 2008/2011)
- Go to Finder.
- Press Shift+Command+H to open the Library folder and go to /Application Support/ Microsoft/Office/Office 2011 AutoRecovery.
- Find the unsaved PowerPoint file on Mac, copy it to the desktop and rename it, then open it with Office PowerPoint, and save it.
Steps to Recover Unsaved PowerPoint on Mac (Office 2016/2018/2020/2022)
- Go to Mac Desktop, go to Go > Go to Folder.
- Enter the path: /Users//Library/Containers/com.Microsoft.Powerpoint/Data/Library/Preferences/AutoRecovery is as follows.
- Find the unsaved PowerPoint file on Mac, copy it to the desktop, rename it, then open it with Office PowerPoint and save it.
Method 2: Recover Unsaved PowerPoint on Mac from Temp Folder If AutoSave Disabled
If you didn’t configure AutoSave in your Office PowerPoint or couldn’t find the unsaved PowerPoint files by following the above method, then the last thing you can do is check your temporary folder. If you are lucky enough, maybe you can find and recover unsaved PowerPoint files on Mac. Here are steps to locate PowerPoint temp files on Mac.
- Go to Finder>Applications, then open Terminal;
- Input “open $TMPDIR” as follows, then hit “Enter” to continue.
- Go to the “TemporaryItems” folder.
- Find the unsaved PowerPoint file, copy it to the desktop, and rename it, then recover the unsaved PowerPoint file on Mac by changing the extension from .tmp to .ppt.
Method 3: Recover Unsaved and Disappeared PowerPoint on Mac
Also, you may run into a situation where you leave the PowerPoint file unsaved and it even disappears on your Mac. If you have enabled AutoSave in PowerPoint, it is still possible to recover the disappeared PowerPoint file on Mac.
- Launch the Microsoft Office PowerPoint for Mac.
- Go to File> Open Recent, then open the files one by one to check.
- Then save or save to finish unsaved and disappeared PowerPoint file recovery on your Mac.
How to Recover Lost or Deleted PowerPoint on Mac?
If you still cannot recover the unsaved PowerPoint files even though you have tried all the above-mentioned methods, or you just deleted the files by accident, there are extra 3 ways to restore them.
The Easiest Way to Recover Lost or Deleted PowerPoint on Mac
If you can’t find the unsaved PowerPoint file, it may get lost. You can choose a third-party PowerPoint recovery software to recover lost PowerPoint files on Mac. As long as the PPT document has not been overwritten yet, there’s the hope of recovering the lost PowerPoint document.
MacDeed Data Recovery will be a good choice for you as it is effective in PPT recovery no matter which PowerPoint version you are running. It is the best data recovery software for Mac which can recover files such as office document files, pictures, videos, etc from Mac hard drives and other external storage devices.
Why Choose MacDeed Data Recovery
- Recover files in 500+ file formats including videos, photos, audio, documents, and many other data
- Allow to quickly find lost PowerPoint files and easily recover them from different storage devices
- Recover lost PowerPoint files due to accidental deletion, unexpected power failure, virus attack, system crashes, and other improper operations
- Preview files before recovery
- 100% safe and compatible with all macOS operating systems including macOS Monterey
You can download and install this PowerPoint recovery software on a Mac. It’s free to try it. Then follow the below guide to start your lost or deleted PowerPoint recovery job.
How to perform PowerPoint recovery on Mac?
Step 1. Select the hard drive.
Open this PowerPoint Recovery Software and go to Data Recovery, choose the hard drive where your PowerPoint files are.
Tip: If you want to recover PowerPoint documents from a USB, SD card, or external hard drive, please connect it to your Mac in advance.
Step 2. Click on Scan to start the scanning process, and use the Filter to find lost or deleted PowerPoint files.
After clicking on Scan, this program will run both quick and deep scanning to find the most files. You can go to the path or type to check the found files. Also, you can use the filter to find specific PowerPoint files.
Step 3. Preview and recover lost or deleted PowerPoint files.
Double-click on the PowerPoint file to preview, select, and Recover them to your local drive or Cloud.
How to Recover Deleted PowerPoint from Mac Trash
If you are new to using Mac, you may be not aware of the fact that all the deleted files are just moved to the Trash, if you want to permanently delete the files, you will need to manually delete them in Trash. So, it is possible to recover lost or deleted PowerPoint files in Mac Trash.
- Go to Trash Bin
- Click on the toolbar as follows to fast locate the lost or deleted files.
- Right-click on the file, and choose “Put Back” to recover the PowerPoint file on mac.
How to Recover Lost or Deleted PowerPoint from Mac with Backup
If you have a good habit of backing up files regularly on online storage services, you can recover lost or deleted PowerPoint files on Mac via backups.
Time Machine
Time Machine is a Mac utility to back up all kinds of files onto an external hard drive. If you have turned the Time Machine ON, you can recover lost or deleted PowerPoint on Mac easily.
- Go to Finder > Application, run Time Machine;
- Go to Finder > All My Files and find the lost or deleted PowerPoint files.
- Click “Restore” to recover the lost or deleted PowerPoint file on Mac.
Via Google Drive
- Login into your Google account and go to Google Drive.
- Go to Trash and find the lost or deleted PowerPoint files on Mac.
- Right-click on the deleted file and choose “Restore” to recover the PowerPoint file.
Via OneDrive
- Go to the OneDrive website and log in with your OneDrive account.
- Go to Recycle bin and find the deleted PowerPoint file.
- Then right-click on the file and choose “Restore” to recover the deleted PowerPoint files on Mac.
Also, if you have backed up files in other storage services, you can recover via those backups, the steps are quite similar.
Extended: How to Recover Previous Version of PowerPoint file on Mac?
You may want to recover a previous version of PowerPoint on Mac, and there are 2 ways to get to the previous version of a PowerPoint file.
Ask for the previous version
If you have sent the PowerPoint file before and edited it later, you can get back to the receiver of your previous PowerPoint file, ask for a copy, and rename it.
Use Time Machine
As we mentioned before, Time Machine can help to recover lost or deleted files via backup. Also, it is capable of restoring the previous version of the PowerPoint file on Mac.
- Go to Finder> Application, and run Time Machine.
- Go to Finder> All My Files, and find the PowerPoint file.
- Use the timeline on the edge of the screen to check all versions, you can select and press the Space bar to preview the file.
- Click “Restore” to recover the previous version of the PowerPoint file on Mac.
Conclusion
Although it is always recommended to periodically save your PowerPoint files to avoid any kind of data loss, however, if you haven’t been very diligent in saving your work or have suffered from events such as a system crash that may cause data loss, then you can follow the above-mentioned process to recover unsaved PowerPoint files and get all lost PPT files back by using MacDeedData Recovery. Last but not least, always click the “Save” button after you make any changes to your PPT presentation.
MacDeed Data Recovery: Safely Recover PowerPoint Files with Ease on Mac
- Recover lost, deleted, or unsaved PowerPoint files
- Recover 200+ file types: document, photo, video, music, archives, and others
- Support any data loss situation: deletion, format, partition loss, system crash, etc
- Recover from internal or external storage
- Use both quick and deep scans to find the most files
- Preview and filter to recover wanted files only
- Recover files to a local drive or Cloud
- M1 and T2 supported