Need to recover photos, videos, archives, databases, or other file types in addition to documents? Try Partition Recovery™, which uses the same recovery technologies and supports a much broader range of file types.
Office Document Recovery Software for Windows, Linux & macOS
Restore deleted or lost Microsoft Word, Excel, OpenOffice and LibreOffice files after accidental deletion, drive formatting, or partition loss, including DOC, DOCX, XLS, XLSX, ODT and ODS.
Hetman Office Recovery™ 5.2
Office Recovery™ helps locate documents lost after accidental deletion, Shift + Delete, emptying the Recycle Bin, application crashes, system failures, or accidental cleanup. It can also search for temporary and AutoRecover copies created by office applications when an original document was not saved or was lost unexpectedly.
The software analyzes file system records and searches storage for known document signatures, making it possible to find files even when their original names or folder locations are no longer available. A step-by-step wizard guides you through the scan, while discovered documents can be browsed, searched and filtered to quickly locate the files you need. You can also preview supported recoverable documents before purchasing a license, allowing you to verify that the files you need have been found and can be opened before deciding to buy.
Watch a short tutorial to see how Office Recovery™ works before downloading it. The video walks through the basic recovery process — selecting a storage device, scanning for lost documents, reviewing the results, and previewing recoverable files before purchase.
Office documents can disappear for many reasons — from accidental deletion or an unsaved file to an application crash, operating system reinstall, or a storage device formatted with an unfamiliar file system. Office Recovery™ provides several analysis methods to locate recoverable documents in these situations and lets you check the results before recovery.
Documents created in Microsoft Word and Excel, LibreOffice Writer and Calc, Apache OpenOffice Writer and Calc may remain recoverable after deletion. On Windows, Delete moves files to the Recycle Bin, while Shift + Delete removes them directly. On macOS, Command + Delete moves files to Trash, and on Linux, Delete usually moves them to Trash while Shift + Delete may delete them permanently. Office Recovery™ can locate deleted documents while their data has not been overwritten.
Closing a document without saving does not always mean that every copy is gone. Microsoft Office, OpenOffice, LibreOffice and other applications may create temporary or AutoRecover copies while a document is being edited. If such copies were created and later deleted, Office Recovery™ can scan the storage for them and may recover a recent version of a document that was never saved manually.
An application crash, frozen operating system, unexpected restart, or power failure can interrupt a save operation and leave an important document missing or incomplete. Office Recovery™ searches for deleted files, temporary copies and recoverable document data left on the storage device, helping to locate documents lost during an unexpected software or system failure.
Reinstalling an operating system or accidentally formatting a USB drive, memory card, or external disk may remove the file system records that previously pointed to your documents. With Full Analysis, Office Recovery™ can search for traces of previous or deleted partitions and analyze their contents for recoverable office documents. This makes it possible to restore supported documents even when they are no longer visible in the current disk layout.
A storage device does not have to be damaged for its documents to become inaccessible. For example, Windows cannot normally read drives formatted with APFS, HFS+ or Linux file systems such as Ext2, Ext3 and Ext4. Office Recovery™ accesses supported file systems directly instead of relying on the operating system to mount them, allowing you to find, preview and recover documents stored on otherwise inaccessible volumes.
Important documents are often removed while reorganizing folders, deleting old files, freeing disk space, or using cleanup utilities. A mistaken selection can delete an entire group of files before the problem is noticed. Office Recovery™ can scan the affected storage for recently deleted documents and help locate files that are no longer present in their original folders.
Office Recovery™ combines document-focused search, file integrity validation and built-in preview with disk imaging, cross-platform file system access and advanced analysis technologies for recovering lost office documents.
Office Recovery™ focuses on document and spreadsheet recovery and supports common Microsoft Office, OpenDocument, PDF, text and legacy document formats.
Microsoft Word Documents
Recover Microsoft Word documents and templates, including modern DOCX files and legacy DOC and DOT formats.
*.doc
*.docx
*.dot
more...
Microsoft Excel Spreadsheets and Related Files
Recover Microsoft Excel workbooks, macro-enabled spreadsheets, templates, add-ins and CSV data files. Both modern XLSX and legacy XLS workbooks are supported.
*.xls
*.xlsx
*.xlsm
*.xlt
*.xltx
*.xltm
*.xla
*.xlam
*.csv
more...
OpenOffice and LibreOffice Documents
Recover files stored in the OpenDocument Format used by OpenOffice, LibreOffice and compatible office suites, including text documents, spreadsheets and presentations.
*.odt
*.ods
*.odp
more...
PDF, Text and Other Document Formats
Office Recovery™ also supports PDF documents, plain text and several legacy document formats, including Rich Text Format, WordPerfect and Windows Write files.
*.pdf
*.rtf
*.txt
*.wpd
*.wri
*.pdb
more...
Office Recovery™ can recover Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, OpenDocument files, PDFs and other supported documents from internal and external storage devices. Connect the affected storage directly to the computer or select an available physical disk, logical volume, or removable device for analysis.
Hard Drives and SSDs
Recover office documents from internal and external HDDs and SSDs after accidental deletion, formatting, operating system reinstallation, file system damage, or loss of a partition. The software analyzes the storage directly and searches for supported documents using file system records and content-aware analysis.
USB Flash Drives and External Storage
Find deleted or lost Word, Excel and other office files on USB flash drives and removable storage, including documents removed accidentally or lost after formatting or file system corruption.
Memory Cards
Recover documents and spreadsheets stored on SD, microSD and other memory cards used with laptops, tablets, cameras, recorders and other devices. The card can be analyzed through a compatible card reader connected to the computer.
Recovery of deleted files from SSDs and other flash-based storage may be affected by TRIM or similar background data-erasure mechanisms. If the original data has already been erased or overwritten, it cannot be reconstructed by data recovery software.
Need broader storage support? Use Partition Recovery™ to recover files from encrypted volumes, virtual machine disks, forensic images, Apple disk images, and other advanced storage sources. For RAID arrays, NAS, DAS, and multi-disk server storage, use RAID Recovery™, which can reconstruct complex storage configurations before searching them for files.
HDD, SSD
& SSHD Drives
& SSHD Drives
External
USB disk
USB disk
USB
flash drive
flash drive
SD, microSD
& Other Cards
& Other Cards
Office Recovery™ lets you narrow the analysis to the documents you actually need. Instead of searching for every possible type of recoverable data, you can select specific Word, Excel, OpenDocument, PDF and other supported formats and apply additional filters before starting the scan.
Search by File Type
Select individual document formats or entire groups of files to include in the analysis. For example, you can search only for DOC and DOCX documents, Excel spreadsheets, OpenDocument files, PDF documents, or any combination of supported formats.
Filter by File Size
Specify the approximate size of the missing documents to exclude files that are clearly too small or too large. This can make it easier to locate the required files when the storage contains a large number of recoverable documents.
Filter by Date
Limit the search to documents created or modified within a specific period. Date filtering is useful when you know approximately when a lost Word document, Excel workbook, or other office file was last used.
Office Recovery™ lets you check recoverable documents before purchasing a license. The built-in viewer opens supported documents directly from the scan results, so Microsoft Office, LibreOffice, OpenOffice, or any other document viewer does not need to be installed on the computer.
Preview Documents Before Recovery
Browse the discovered files, select a document, and examine its contents directly in the preview pane or open it in a full-screen preview. This makes it possible to identify the required Word, Excel, OpenDocument, PDF, and other supported files and evaluate the recovery result before purchase.
Document Integrity Validation
Before adding a document to the recovery results, Office Recovery™ checks its file structure and integrity. Only complete, undamaged documents that can be opened and previewed are included in the results. Partially reconstructed or structurally damaged files are excluded automatically.
Need to examine or recover partially damaged files in addition to intact documents? Try Partition Recovery™, which provides broader file recovery capabilities and can include partially recoverable files in the scan results.
Office Recovery™ can create a sector-by-sector image of a storage device and recover documents from the image instead of repeatedly accessing the original disk. This is especially useful when working with unstable storage or when you want to preserve the current state of the source before further analysis.
Create a Sector-by-Sector Disk Image
Create a DSK disk image containing a complete bit-for-bit copy of the source storage. You can image the entire device or specify a particular range of sectors when only part of the disk needs to be copied. The resulting image can then be analyzed without repeatedly reading the original storage device.
Recover Documents from Disk Images
Instead of scanning a physical device, Office Recovery™ can work with supported disk images as virtual storage. The program can mount and analyze DSK images created by Hetman Software, RAW disk images, and DriveImage XML images to locate supported documents without modifying the original image.
Need to recover documents from forensic, Apple, or virtual machine disk images? Try Partition Recovery™, which supports a much wider range of image formats, including E01, AFF/AFF4, DMG, VMDK, VHD/VHDX, VDI, QCOW/QCOW2 and others.
Office Recovery™ reads supported file systems directly and does not rely on the operating system to mount the volume. This allows you to access and recover documents from file systems that are not natively supported by the computer you are currently using.
Windows File Systems
Access documents stored on FAT, exFAT, NTFS and ReFS volumes. These file systems can be analyzed directly even when Office Recovery™ is running on Linux or macOS.
macOS File Systems
Analyze APFS and HFS+ storage without requiring macOS to mount the volume. For example, an APFS or HFS+ disk can be connected to a Windows computer and scanned directly for recoverable documents.
Linux and Unix File Systems
Recover documents from Ext2, Ext3, Ext4, XFS, Btrfs, ReiserFS, ZFS and UFS volumes, including Linux-formatted drives that Windows cannot normally open or browse.
The software also supports VMFS and HikvisionFS. File system support is independent of the operating system used to run Office Recovery™, so supported storage can be analyzed and documents recovered across Windows, Linux and macOS environments.
Documents stored on encrypted volumes or encrypted file systems require broader recovery capabilities. For encrypted storage, try Partition Recovery™, which supports advanced encrypted-storage recovery in addition to the file systems listed above.
Office Recovery™ uses the same advanced file system analysis technologies as Partition Recovery™, but focuses the recovery results on supported documents and spreadsheets. The software can analyze existing file systems, locate deleted data, examine previously formatted storage, and search for document content when file system records are no longer available.
File System and Content-Aware Analysis
- Fast Scan and Full Analysis for recovering recently deleted documents as well as searching storage after formatting, file system damage, or loss of the original partition structure.
- Content-aware analysis searches the storage for known file signatures during Full Analysis and can locate supported documents even when their original filenames, folders, or file system records have been lost.
- Save analysis results and resume recovery later without repeating the complete scan of the storage device.
Office Recovery™ runs on Windows, Linux, and macOS and requires low-level access to storage devices for document recovery. The main requirements are sufficient system privileges to access the source storage and enough free space on a separate destination to safely save recovered documents.
Windows, Linux & macOS
The software can be used on Windows, Linux, and macOS to recover supported Word, Excel, OpenDocument, PDF, and other document formats from physical disks, partitions, removable storage, and supported disk images. Recovery does not depend on the operating system originally used on the affected storage.
Administrator & Root Access
Direct access to physical disks requires administrator or root privileges, depending on the operating system. These permissions allow Office Recovery™ to read physical storage, partition tables, file system structures, and deleted data that may not be accessible to a standard user account.
Free Space for Recovered Documents
Recovered documents should be saved to a different storage device with enough free space for all selected files. Depending on the recovery case, this can be another internal disk, an external HDD or SSD, a USB device, or another accessible destination.
Office Recovery™ can save recovered files to a disk or folder, create a ZIP archive, or upload recovered data by FTP, allowing you to choose an appropriate destination without writing files back to the affected storage.
The required destination space may be larger than expected when the scan finds multiple versions or copies of the same document, including deleted files, temporary copies, AutoRecover data, or documents discovered by different analysis methods.
Do not save recovered documents back to the source storage. Writing new data to the affected disk can overwrite deleted documents or file system information that may still be recoverable. Save recovered files to another physical disk or other separate destination whenever possible.
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When should I use Hetman Partition Recovery instead of Hetman Office Recovery?
Office Recovery™ is designed specifically for recovering documents and spreadsheets and uses the same core file system analysis technologies as Partition Recovery™. It focuses the recovery results on supported document formats and performs additional document integrity validation.
Use Partition Recovery™ instead when you need to:
- recover photos, videos, archives, databases, presentations, or other file types in addition to documents;
- recover data from encrypted volumes or encrypted file systems;
- work with a wider range of forensic, Apple, or virtual machine disk images;
- examine or recover partially damaged or partially reconstructed files.
If your recovery task is limited to supported Word, Excel, OpenDocument, PDF, and other document formats, Office Recovery™ provides a more focused recovery workflow.
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Why is a deleted Word or Excel file missing from the recovery results, and can Office Recovery recover damaged files?
A deleted Word, Excel, or other document may be missing from the recovery results if its data has already been overwritten, erased by TRIM on an SSD or other flash-based storage, or only partially preserved.
Office Recovery™ is designed to recover intact documents rather than repair corrupted files. Before adding a document to the results, the software checks its structure and integrity. Only documents that can be opened and previewed are included, while partially reconstructed or structurally damaged files are excluded automatically.
If you need to examine or recover partially damaged or partially reconstructed files, use Partition Recovery™, which provides broader recovery results and can include partially recoverable files.
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Can I recover an unsaved Word, Excel, LibreOffice, or OpenOffice document if no AutoRecover file exists?
Office Recovery™ can recover an unsaved document only if some recoverable data was actually written to the storage device. Depending on the application, this may include temporary files, AutoRecover or AutoSave data, backup copies, or other working files created while the document was being edited.
This applies not only to Microsoft Word and Excel, but also to applications such as LibreOffice Writer and Calc, Apache OpenOffice Writer and Calc, and other office suites that create temporary or recovery data during editing.
If the application never created a temporary, backup, or recovery copy, or if those files have already been overwritten or erased, data recovery software cannot reconstruct a document whose contents were never written to the storage device.
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Can I verify that the files I need are recoverable before purchasing a license?
Yes. Office Recovery™ lets you scan the storage, locate the required documents, and preview supported recoverable files before purchasing a license. This allows you to verify that the Word, Excel, OpenDocument, PDF, or other supported documents you actually need have been found and can be opened.
In practice, this provides a function similar to the initial diagnostic stage of a professional data recovery laboratory: you can evaluate the recovery result before deciding whether to proceed. The difference is that the analysis is performed directly on your computer, without sending the storage device to a laboratory or waiting for a diagnostic report.
Because Office Recovery™ also checks the structure and integrity of recovered documents, files included in the results are available for preview, giving you a practical way to assess the recovery outcome before purchase.