Microsoft Word Is Deleting Some Files Instead of Saving Them

Microsoft is warning Word for Windows users about a bug that might see their files disappear when they try to save them.

While the computing giant works on a fix, users are being told to be careful when saving; and check their recycle bin if a document disappears.

Microsoft has been busy ramping up the capabilities of its AI chatbot, Copilot, so perhaps the company could ask it for a fix.

What Is the Bug?

The bug kicks in when users try to close Word after editing a document and are then prompted to save.

The bug will impact users only if their filename includes the symbol “#” or if they have a capitalized file extension, such as .DOCX or .RTF, explains Bleeping Computer.

When they hit the save button, their document might then disappear into the recycle bin instead of saving.

Who Does It Affect?

This is, however, a problem for a very specific group of Word users. As Microsoft has laid out in a post, they are people working with Word for Microsoft 365 version 2409, build 18025.20104.

Some of these users wrote posts in the Microsoft forum to alert the Redmond team; and a fix is now on the way.

How Can I Work Around This?

If you are one of the Word users being plagued by this bug, Microsoft is suggesting you manually save your files for the time being. “Our current tests show the issue occurs after saving when prompted on clicking X to close Word. It does not currently reproduce when manually saving before close,” the support page states.

Techradar adds that you can also enable the option: “Don’t show the Backstage when opening or saving files with keyboard shortcuts.” This, it says, can be enabled “by going to File > Options > Save > Don’t show the Backstage, when opening or saving files with keyboard shortcuts.”

You could also use an earlier version of Word to get around the issue while the engineers solve the problem.