January 03, 2023
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Keynote, a simple yet beautiful Apple utility that functions as similarly as Microsoft PowerPoint, is designed to create sideshows. It makes your presentation easily understood and more creative. But when creating or editing a Keynote file, there may arise a problem---we may accidentally delete or leave a Keynote Presentation unsaved on Mac, what to do?
No worries, here we list 5 ways to recover unsaved Keynote presentation or restore accidentally deleted/lost Keynote files easily, also include some tips you need to know about Keynote recovery.
Cisdem Data Recovery for Mac
Free DownloadAuto-Save helps to save files on Mac automatically, it is applicable for all document-based apps, such as iWork Keynote, Pages, Numbers, Preview, TextEdit, etc. It is a part of MacOS, instead of a standalone program comes with MacOS, also there are quite little information about Auto-Save revealed by Apple.
Yes, Keynote AutoSave is ON by default and automatically save the new versions of your file every 5 minutes.
You can find autosaved Keynote file by visiting this location:
~/Library/Containers/com.apple.iWork.Keynote/Data/Library/Autosave Information
When Keynote app is launched, the AutoSave feature is also enabled by default, but if your Keynote file won’t save on Mac, you can refer to following reasons and find your own solutions to restore AutoSave feature:
By default, Auto-Save is turned ON, but users can choose not to use this feature by turning off as following:
Actually, if you are working with Keynote file on a Mac, it is unlikely that you will leave Keynote unsaved, since the Auto-Save feature is always working behind to save your files every time when there is a change done to the file.
But in case that your Keynote is quit without saving, here are 2 ways to recover the Keynote presentation that wasn’t saved.
As we mentioned above, Auto-Save is enabled by default on a Mac to save files automatically. Therefore, we can use Keynote AutoSave to recover unsaved Keynote presentation after crash or for other reasons.
Or you can refer to following YouTube video to recover deleted or unsaved Keynote files on Mac.
To recover deleted or lost Keynote presentations, here are 3 ways for your option, you can choose to do the Keynote recovery with or without software, with paid or free service.
Ways to recover Keynote files are multiple, but the easiest and efficient way is using an expert to do the job.
While, Cisdem Data Recovery is a good choice. It is a mac program helping users to recover iWork Pages, Keynote, Numbers, Microsoft Office files, photos, videos and other files from internal or external device. With 5 recovery modes, Cisdem Data Recovery can smartly dig out the lost files and restore them successfully.
Main Features of Cisdem Data Recovery
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In fact, when we delete files on mac, we just move the files to Trash bin, they are not permanently deleted, we can still recover the files from Trash Bin.
Yet, if you have permanently deleted the Keynote File and want to recover deleted or lost Keynote files for free, you can use Mac Time Machine.
As we all know, Time Machine is a mac utility helping users to back up files from Mac to a hard drive, if you have turned Time Machine ON, you will be able to recover lost or deleted Keynote files from Time Machine backup.
In fact, there are 2 great services MacOS offers to enhance the convenience on working with documents: Auto-Save and Versions. Auto-Save helps to save any change of a document immediately after a change done to the file; while Versions offers a way to access and compare all previous versions of a document. Basically, on any Mac, the Auto-Save and Versions feature is ON by default.
So, if you want to recover a Keynote previous version, use the Versions feature:
I just finished a 60 slides keynote, then I tried to open it in my iPhone to practice. The macOS keynote says "the file is damaged and can't be opened."---Raphshu from Apple Discussion
Yet, there are sometimes we will run into a similar problem, the Keynote presentation is damaged and cannot be opened. In this case, there are 4 solutions.
Solution 1. Send the Keynote file to a friend that using a different Keynote version, check if the file can be opened, if yes, you’d better switch to a workable Keynote version on your mac.
Solution 2. Use the backup. You may have backed up the file via Time Machine or iCloud service, use these services to find back you last updated Keynote presentations.
Solution 3. Open the file with Mac Preview, then copy and paste the contents to a new Keynote file.
Solution 4. Convert Keynote to PDF with online free service. The file will be saved in PDF format and you can open the file with Mac Preview. If necessary, copy and paste the PDF contents to a new Keynote file.
Solution 5. Use a piece of Data Recovery software such as Cisdem Data Recovery, to find and get your Keynote file back.
Speaking of recovering Keynote presentations, no matter it is unsaved, deleted, lost even damaged, we have several possible ways to get it solved. But the best (easiest and most efficient) way is always getting you an expert, let’s say, a Mac Data Recovery Software.
Connie has been writing for Mac productivity and utility apps since 2009. Each review and solution is based on her practical tests, she is aways energetic and trustworthy in this field.
Connor Wilson
Seems the most complete guide about Keynote presentations recovery so far. I managed to recover my keynotes using Cisdem. Awesome.