[2024] How to Recover Unsaved or Deleted Pages Document on Mac?

If you’ve spent hours even days writing a document in Apple Pages, but left it unsaved or deleted, this guide covers all the solutions.

Ignoring the arguments about iWork Pages VS Microsoft Word, more and more Mac users get used to editing in Apple Pages app. We may spend a lot of time on a Pages file, so whenever we lost the file due to sudden power off without saving or accidental deletion, we get into a panic and don’t know what to do.

Actually it is not that difficult to recover an unsaved or deleted document in Apple Pages, once you learn how in this guide.

 

How to Recover Unsaved Pages Document on Mac?

Recovering knowledge is required to get back an unsaved Pages document? Not at all. You can start easy and work your way up, because Apple Pages has an autosave feature and it lets users regain their access to a file using different ways, also there are dedicated tools to get the task easily done.

Does Pages Save Automatically?

Yes, Pages saves automatically on a Mac, because of Auto-save.

Auto-save is a part of MacOS, allowing an app to autosave the document users are working on. When you are editing on a document, the changes are saved automatically, there will be no “Save” command appears. 

In other words, whenever your Pages document is left unsaved due to sudden power off or program crash, you can just launch Pages app again, then it will automatically open the Pages documents that are never saved on your Mac, you just need to edit and save the file as you like.

If it doesn’t work, keep reading on.

 

Method 1. The Easiest Way to Recover Unsaved Pages Document 

File recovery itself is time consuming and not a thing that can be easily done. It involves labor-intensive work to extract the data and each case can be unique. Though there are online and remote services, but many of them are not reliable and the quotes are quite expensive.   

Therefore, a data recovery program becomes the game-changer. Whether you want to recover unsaved, deleted or damaged files from different kinds of storage disks and devices, it offers the easiest solution to recover your data offline at a low cost.

Choosing a suitable data recovery program can be overwhelming, with so many options available. By considering the scanning speed, supported formats, recovery rate and features, Cisdem Data Recovery is picked as the most reliable tool to restore Pages document easily. It is designed to restore 1000+ types of files on internal and external hard drive, including Pages, Keynote, Numbers, PowerPoint, Word, Excel, and others. Also, it supports the latest macOS Sequoia and M4 chip.

Why Cisdem Data Recovery?

• It can recover unsaved Pages, Keynote, Numbers, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, WPS, Photoshop files
• It can recover deleted files in 1000+ formats: documents, videos, photos, emails, archives, bookmarks, audios, etc.
• It can repair damaged Word, Excel, PowerPoint, photos, videos and so on
• It supports restoring files, including Pages from unbootable Mac.
• It can perform data recovery on virtually all disk and device types: hdd, ssd, usb, sd card, media player, etc.
• It applies to a lot of data loss situations: power off, formatting, deletion, virus attack, system crash/update/downgrade and so on
• It recover Pages and other files from iCloud
• It allows previewing files before recovery
• It can recover data to local drive or Cloud
• It can create disk backup and restore data from the backup easily

How to Recover Unsaved Pages Document in Cisdem?

1. Download and install Cisdem Data Recovery on your Mac.
   Free Download macOS 10.15 or later
2. Go to Hardware Disk, choose the hard drive where you edited the Pages documents and left it unsaved. Then click Search for lost files.
3. Go to Type > Unsaved Files, it will list all the unsaved files, including Pages that is never saved.
4. Preview the Pages document before recovery. Then select and click Recover.
5. Select a location to save the restored Pages documents on your Mac.

 

Method 2. Check Pages AutoSave Location

If Pages doesn’t open and recover unsaved document automatically, we can also find the file in AutoSave location according to following steps.

1. From Apple’s menu bar, go to Go > Go to Folder.
2. Type Users/username/Library/Containers/com.apple.iWork.Pages/Data/Library/Autosave Information and press Enter. 
3. Then check if the unsaved Pages document is there, open and save the file in Apple Pages.

 

Method 3. Try Open Recent Function

Another quick trick is to make use of the built-in function of Pages --- Open Recent Files. This is how to recover a Pages document that wasn’t saved.

1. Open Pages.
2. From the top menu, go to File > Open Recent. There could be multiple Pages files that you worked on.
3. Browse them to open and recover the exact one you need.

 

Method 4. From Temporary Folder

Also, you can try your luck in the temporary folder, if you cannot find your Pages document anywhere on the Mac. Temporary folder stores the temporary files created by the system or a program, there might be a copy of the Pages document there.

1. Go to Finder > Applications > Utilities. 
2. Find and run Terminal on your Mac.
3. Input "open $TMPDIR" to Terminal, then press "Enter".
4. Find the Pages document you didn’t save in the opened folder. Then open the document and save it.

 

Method 5. Via iCloud Backup

If you have synced the Pages document from your Mac to iCloud by saving this file in iCloud Drive folder on your Mac, even if you left the Pages document unsaved on your Mac, the latest edited version will be displayed in iCloud Pages in real time. 

You just need to open a web browser and sign into icloud.com, then check the synced version and download a copy.

1. Visit https://www.icloud.com/, sign in with your iCloud account, then go to Pages.
2. Go to Recents, select and open the Pages document that is left unsaved on your Mac.
3. Then click the 3-dot icon to download a copy to your Mac, the unsaved Pages document will be restored to your Mac.

 

Method 6. Retrieve the Untitled Pages Document that Wasn’t Saved on Mac

In the case you just create a new Pages document, you don’t have enough time to name the file before any problems happen, and hence have no idea where you stored the Pages document, here is the solution to recover the untitled Pages document that wasn’t saved.

1. Press Command + F to open the search interface.
2. Choose "This Mac" and select file kind as "Document". Also enter the file extension ".pages" in the search box to quickly locate the unsaved Pages documents.
3. Open the found Pages document and save it.

 

How to Recover Deleted Pages Document?

Accidentally deleted a Pages document, even emptied the Trash bin and realized you deleted the file by mistake? The recovery process can be pain sailing if you find the right solution or tool.

The methods to recover deleted Pages document are quite different from those for recovering unsaved Page document. It depends on if you have a backup or not, if a Pages document is permanently deleted, a professional Pages recovery tool is required.

Method 1. Undo Delete

If you don’t perform any other action on your Mac after deleting the Pages document, you can undo the deletion from Finder menu.

1. Click on Finder icon.
2. Go to Edit, choose Undo Move to recover the deleted Pages document.

 

Method 2. From Trash Bin

This is an easy yet easily-overlooked way to recover a deleted Pages document. In fact, when we delete a document on the Mac, it is just moved to the Trash bin instead of being permanently deleted. If you haven’t performed the step of "Delete Immediately" in the Trash bin, you can still recover the deleted Pages document.

1. Go to Trash Bin and find the deleted Pages document.
2. Right click on the Pages document, choose "Put Back".
3. You will find the recovered Pages document appears in the originally saved folder.

 

Method 3. Recover Deleted Pages Document from Time Machine Backup

If you are the one get used to back up files with Time Machine, you are able to recover deleted Pages document with Time Machine backup. Time Machine is a program allowing users to back up their files onto an external hard drive and find the deleted or lost file back when files are gone or corrupted for some reason.

1. Plug the Time Machine backup external hard drive to your Mac.
2. Go to Applications, run Time Machine.
3. Go to the folder in which you store the Pages document and open it.
4. Use the arrows and timeline to find your Pages document fast.
5. Once ready, click "Restore" to recover deleted Pages document with Time Machine.

 

Method 4. Recover Deleted Pages Document from iCloud

If you’ve enabled the sync-up from Mac Pages to iCloud Pages, even you deleted a Pages document on Mac, the iCloud backup file is still there, you can transfer a copy to your Mac.

1. Log into https://www.icloud.com/.
2. Go to Pages, select and download the Pages document to your Mac.
3. (Optional) If you can not find the Pages document in Browse folder, go to Recently Deleted, select the document you want to recover, click ... > Recover.

Also, if you once sent this deleted Pages document to a contact before, there would be a shareable link, you can check your emails or any other app that you once sent the link.

 

Method 5. Recover Permanently Deleted Pages Document on Mac

But what if you don’t have a backup, and the Pages document is permanently deleted? Then it might be time to consider using a professional data recovery program.

That might sound daunting to pick the best, but we have chosen the best one for you, Cisdem Data Recovery. Yes, it can not only recover an unsaved Pages file, but also retrieved permanently deleted Pages document on a Mac.

1. Download and install Cisdem Data Recovery on your Mac.
   Free Download macOS 10.15 or later
2. Go to Hardware Disk, choose the hard drive where you edited or stored the Pages documents. Click Search for lost files.
3. Go to Type > Documents > pages, also you can use the filter tool or search box to quickly locate a deleted / unsaved Pages document.
4. Preview the Pages document, select and click Recover button.

 

Conclusion

In conclusion, no matter you want to recover unsaved Pages document on Mac, or recover deleted Pages document, as long as you use the appropriate method, we are able to find them back. Also, we should always remember that, backup all your important files before your files are gone forever.