Lost documents in Outlook Temp

Question

Hi everyone,

I'm in desperate need of your help to retrieve lost documents. I'm well-known for not being very organised with my documents, but I think I've reached a new high. I usually have some system so I always find my documents again, yet without noticing my word documents were getting saved to Outlook Temp more recently. This is the path for one of them: /Users/u0158698/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Outlook/Data/tmp/Outlook Temp/PhD stuff 2024.docx

It's also not just one document I've lost, but many, including some very important ones. These are all work documents. How can I retrieve anything from there or is it gone forever? I spent hours last night trying to figure it out, but did not manage. I eventually found the folder, but it is empty and from what I read online it is probably deleted.

Only more recent documents can be found in the Outlook Temp folder, which are said to be 'locked'.

I've also tried to open the attachment again via Outlook and to search it via Spotlight, but no success. I've also checked the bin.

Thank you so so much for any advice you might have!

With kind regards,

Elisa

Answer 1

Your files saved in the temp folder are probably gone. To prevent this in the future, save attachments to your hard disk or to OneDrive before editing them.

Answer 2

Hi @Elisa ,

Thanks for your reply!

Based on my research, i found a similar thread as yours which mentioned that -- Files will now either default save to the Desktop or the last folder you saved a file in that particular app:

Please check the version of your Outlook and confirm it is updated.

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