Where does a word doc saved to, when saved as hotmail attachment

G

Guest

friend of mine sent herself a word doc as an attachment, she opened it up on
another computer without first saving it to the hard drive of the second
computer. After she made changes to the doc she saved it. and now she can't
find it on her computer. This is using office 2003, and she is using hotmail
to send email
 
C

Charles Kenyon

One of many reasons for not opening attachments directly from email,
especially if they will be saved for use later. Instead, save to hard disk
location and open from that location.

With Word still open, try the recent files list under the file menu. If
found this way, save to a real location.

Otherwise, check Start > My Recent Documents. It might be there.

If the computer has been restarted, chances of it being gone are high
because attachements opened directly from email are generally stored in
temporary folders. The name says it all.
--
Charles Kenyon

Word New User FAQ & Web Directory: http://addbalance.com/word

Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide) http://addbalance.com/usersguide


--------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
This message is posted to a newsgroup. Please post replies
and questions to the newsgroup so that others can learn
from my ignorance and your wisdom.
 
S

Suzanne S. Barnhill

It's saved in a temp folder and deleted when you close Word.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.
 
J

Jay Freedman

dineman said:
friend of mine sent herself a word doc as an attachment, she opened
it up on another computer without first saving it to the hard drive
of the second computer. After she made changes to the doc she saved
it. and now she can't find it on her computer. This is using office
2003, and she is using hotmail to send email

When you open an attachment without saving it first, it's a temporary file
in a temporary folder. If you just hit Save, your edits go into that temp
location, and when you close Word the whole thing vanishes. It isn't
anywhere... sorry!

The lesson is that if you're going to edit an attachment, not just read it,
then you MUST use File > Save As to make a permanent copy. It's best to do
that from the mail reader BEFORE you open the file, although it will work if
you remember to do it from Word after editing but before closing.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.
 
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Ok so I'm sick of all these "IT" people saying that it is impossible to find a file that was opened from an attachment and accidently saved (not on the computer) They say that these files are gone forever and that it's impossible to recover these files... IT'S NOT!

First of all I'm not 100% sure how long these files remain on computers, I'm assuming its not longer then a week, possibly not even longer then 1-2 days however I'm not sure they may last a month...

So here we go: if you have opened a file from an email attachment (microsoft files: word, excel, ppt, ect.) and you saved it without using the save as command and here is instructions to find your lost file:

Open up your My Computer or My Documents folder and follow these steps: go to Tools, Folder Options, View tab, and select Show Hidden Files and Folders.

After you have completed this step you will want to set up a similar scenario to when you lost your important file. Create a word document or excel file and send it to your email (Making sure that it is not saved on your computer at all!) then open this attachment without saving it to your computer (like you did earlier which got you in this situation!) once this file is open, go to: File, Prepare, and select Properties. This will come up with a highlighted chart showing the location your file is being temporarily saved at:
Mine shows me this: C:\Documents and Settings\JSOMM\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\A5VYNZU2\target audience graphs.xlsx

Now from here you will want to select this portion of it: C:\Documents and Settings\YOURNAME\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5 leaving out the made up file you created as well as the folder that this file is in!

Once you have copied this part, you will want to paste this into your address bar which will open up the folder *Content.IE5*. You will also notice the hidden folders that you enabled earlier.. You will find your file inside one of the hidden folders in this folder. Just simply go through each folder and type in the first letter of the filename you are looking for and you will eventually find it. If not its been to long and your computer has already removed this temporary file.

I'm sorry I can't break it down any further then that however this is how you will find the file you worked on from the attachment.

Good Luck :fool:
- J SOMM
 
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:bow: Just come across this thread whilst trying to calm down my A lvel student daughter who had saved but NOT saved an essay from email.
Thank you J SOMM so so so much! I can't tell you how you have saved both our lives! I even joined this forum especially to say thanks!!!!!!!!! will defo be using the site more now , You are a genius xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:thumb:
yvonne x
 
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:bow: Just come across this thread whilst trying to calm down my A lvel student daughter who had saved but NOT saved an essay from email.
Thank you J SOMM so so so much! I can't tell you how you have saved both our lives! I even joined this forum especially to say thanks!!!!!!!!! will defo be using the site more now , You are a genius xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:thumb:
yvonne x

No worries ;) Its happened to me multiple times so I figured its happened to others as well! I'm glad this helped you! I don't even use this site I was just tired of people who said it couldn't be done! .. Impossible is nothing! Good luck!
 
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DEAR JSOMM32! You just SAVED my life!!!!!! You are THE BEST!! I was crying for two hours because this happened to me and actually totally realized I did this after 1 week of closing the file. 10 page paper written from a word doc file I opened from my hotmail acc! OMG I wanted to die! you were the ONLY one who had the right solution!! Lesson learned! THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 

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