A nasty Word bug deletes files upon saving. Here’s how to avoid it

According to some Microsoft Word users, the Office software is apparently deleting files after saving — not the kind of behavior you want when doing important work, and not the kind of bug you’d expect from a company as established as Microsoft.

Microsoft has officially confirmed the issue as of October 3, 2024. But while we haven’t gotten a definitive explanation or solution yet, there is a temporary workaround. If you can’t avoid using Microsoft Word until an official fix is released, read on for what you should do.

Related: Microsoft Office 2024 is here, no subscription required

How the delete-upon-save bug works

According to Microsoft, this bug currently affects Microsoft 365 version 2409 and occurs with files that have a file extension that’s saved in all capital letters. In addition, a “#” character in the document title can also lead to an unintentional deletion.

The deletion bug occurs when you close Word after editing such a file without first saving the file. When Word warns you that you’re closing an unsaved file, it’ll ask if you want to save it — and if you do confirm to save, Word ends up deleting the file instead.

In other words, the problem only rears its head if the open file hasn’t been saved manually beforehand and only if you choose to save through the “unsaved file” warning prompt upon closing Word.

The workaround for deleted files

The good news is, files deleted in this way aren’t totally gone. Word merely moves them to the Recycle Bin, so you should be able to recover your documents there.

To prevent Word from accidentally deleting your documents, you can avoid the issue altogether by manually saving all your documents before closing Word.

But there’s also another workaround, which you might want to enable to be extra safe: Click on the File menu in Word, then select Options, then click on the Save tab and enable the checkbox for Don’t show the Backstage when opening or saving files with keyboard shortcuts.

Microsoft still isn’t entirely sure why this bug is happening, but the company is working on a fix.

Further reading: Advanced Microsoft Word tricks worth knowing