Recovering Unsaved Presentations in PowerPoint 2010 for Windows

After spending an inordinate amount of time to create your PowerPoint presentation, your computer unexpectedly crashes or your computer just shuts off due to a power failure. Or maybe just PowerPoint crashes for any number of reasons. Of course, since you had zero warnings, your files were not saved. You are now left with your last-saved presentation. Well, you may fare better because you can restart PowerPoint, and one of two occurrences might happen:

1. PowerPoint starts with opening the presentation file, so you can save any recovered work and continue using your file.
2. The Document Recovery task pane appears, with up to three recovered versions of your file. You can identify which version you want to keep, and the ones you want to discard.

Follow these steps to use the Document Recovery task pane to recover your presentation after PowerPoint or your OS crashes in PowerPoint 2010 in Windows:

1. Launch PowerPoint, and you may see the Document Recovery task pane, as shown in Figure 1, below.
2. 
   Figure 1: Document Recovery task pane
2. Within the Available files list, click the button with the downward pointing arrow next to the recovered file, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 1, above, to bring up a drop-down list.
3. There are four options available within the list, which are explained below:
1. Click the Open option to review the recovered version of the file
2. Click the Save As option to rename and create a new version of the file
3. Click the Delete option to delete any recovered version(s) of the file
4. The Show Repairs option is often grayed out, unless PowerPoint finds a file that's not completely useable, then attempts to salvage whatever content it can save, you can then select the Show Repairs option to learn more about the file repair.
4. Save and keep any recovered file that you want.

Recovering Presentations Manually

Note that when you open PowerPoint, the Document Recovery Task Pane does not always appear, and if you need to see presentations within the Document Recovery Task Pane, there really isn't an intuitive way to launch it. To see this list of presentations manually outside the Document Recovery Task Pane, follow these steps:

1. Within PowerPoint 2010, access the File menu, and choose Options, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 2, below. You can also press both the Alt and T keys together, and next press O.


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2. 
   Figure 2: Choose File | Options
2. Doing so brings up the PowerPoint Options dialog box, as shown in Figure 3, below. Within the PowerPoint Options dialog box's sidebar, make sure that the Save, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 3, option is selected. Scroll down to the Save presentations section to find the AutoRecover file location, as shown highlighted in blue within Figure 3.
3. 
   Figure 3: PowerPoint Options dialog box
3. Copy the AutoRecover file location folder path, as shown highlighted in blue within Figure 3, above. And close the PowerPoint Options dialog box.
4. Now, access the File | Open option, this brings up the Open dialog box, as shown in Figure 4, below. Notice the area highlighted in red within Figure 4, just click on this area and paste the previously copied AutoRecover file location folder path.
5. 
   Figure 4: Open dialog box
5. You can now see all the files and folders with the AutoRecover file location folder path, as shown in Figure 5, below.
6. 
   Figure 5: AutoRecover file location directory path within Open dialog box
6. Within the Open dialog box click the button, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 5, above, to bring up a drop-down list, as shown in Figure 6, below. Within the drop-down list make sure you select the All Files option.
7. 
   Figure 6: Choose All Files option
7. This action will show all the .tmp, .pptx, and other files within the Open dialog box, as shown in Figure 7, below. You can select the file and open to recover them. Make sure you check within all sub-folders for any file.
8. 
   Figure 7: Files within the Open dialog box