Notepad is the best free text editor on Windows, though with limited functionalities, it is the quickest tool to view, edit and search within a plain text file on a PC. You may use it very often to edit reg files, logs or scripts, to take notes as per your habit, to copy and paste links or contents without formatting, whatever your purpose is, there is accident that an edited Notepad file is not saved.
Notepad has the feature of picking up where you left off on a file that you didn’t save, but it is not able to recover an unsaved Notepad file via AutoSave as other text editors do. Here in this guide, we will show you the full steps to recover Notepad files that are not saved, in multiple ways.
Cisdem Data Recovery for Windows and Mac
Free Download Windows 11/10/8/7
Free Download macOS 10.9 or later Unlike Notepad++, or other file processor like Word, Excel, Notepad app doesn't offer any autosave or backup feature. Therefore, you won’t be able to recover an unsaved Notepad TXT file via AutoSave feature.
However, the contents of your Notepad file will be saved in the computer memory temporarily. While these temporary files will get wiped each time computer is shut down. In other words, there’s little or no chance to recover an unsaved Notepad text after restarting computer. So keep in mind that don’t do anything (especially reboot) to your laptop/desktop before figuring out a suitable way to restore the Notepad files not saved.
Think about how much time you’ve spent on the Notepad file and it is not hard to imagine how annoying it could be if you left the file unsaved. So, these 3 ways to recover an unsaved Notepad TXT file will get you out from the trouble. And, if you are looking for a reliable and quick solution, go straight to the first method as follow.
A piece of Notepad file recovery application is proven to be the most reliable tool to retrieve Notepad files on Windows, because it is applicable to different situations, not matter the Notepad file is unsaved, deleted or corrupted. Also, it is highly compatible with different Windows version, from latest 11 to earlier 7.
Cisdem Data Recovery for Windows is qualified to be the most advanced data recovery expert among a plethora of software competitors. It dedicates to provide full-range solutions to get back deleted or lost files under a handful of data loss situations. More than 1000 types of file, including Notepad, can be quickly and successfully restored by Cisdem.
Main features of Cisdem Data Recovery
As following is the step-by-step tutorial of recovering unsaved/deleted/corrupted Notepad files on Windows 11/10/8/7 by Cisdem:
Free Download Windows 11/10/8/7 
On Windows, there is temp directory storing temporary files, these temp files are created by different applications and processes when they are in use. If you close a Notepad text file without saving it, there is still faint hope that the text could be available in the Windows temporary files folder, providing you didn’t restart or shut down your computer since the accident.
The path for temp files on Windows 11/10, namely the roaming folder location, is C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming.
The second option applies to a specific scenario in which you need to recover parts of the Notepad file. That’s to say, if you forget to save some newly added contents into a Notepad file originally stored on your Windows 11/10 computer, one wise choice to recover the unsaved note is restoring it to its previous version. But this will work out only if File History has been initiated or system restore has been set up.
Once you meet the conditions, proceed to the instructions below to recover a Notepad file that was not saved.
When it comes to another tough part --- deleted Notepad text file recovery in Window 11/10, 4 potential avenues have been rounded up to help you out.
In case you delete or lose the Notepad notes just recently, they may still remain in the Recycle Bin of Windows 11/10. To restore Notepad files from Recycle Bin, you’d better waste no time since data in Recycle Bin will be automatically erased when its contents are over 5% of the hard drive’s storage space. Let’s see how.
Assuming you need to recover multiple Notepad files, select them while holding Ctrl key and choose “Restore the selected items” to revert them simultaneously.
For users who have a backup of the deleted Notepad files in OneDrive, you just need to re-download the file from cloud to your local drive for recovery.
In addition to Cisdem Data Recovery that handles recovery even without a backup, another Notepad file recovery tool we can try is Windows File Recovery.
It’s an application created by Microsoft, to help restore the files and documents of its users. Although free to use, it has no graphical interface. We have to use command lines during the recovery operation, which is not friendly to those tech-novice PC owners. Besides, we need to remember the name of the Notepad file if using Windows File Recovery. This is how.
As a popular saying goes, no backup, no recovery. This is a bit exaggerated though. It’s a fact that backing up your files regularly makes things much simpler if losing Notepad text files unexpectedly. On Windows 8 and later, we have File History to recover a previous or deleted Notepad files, you can check back the steps in Part 2. But on Windows 7, Backup and Restore is the native tool to recover a deleted file. See below for how to retrieve deleted/lost Notepad files via restoring the backup on Windows 7.
Notepad is the native plain text editor pre-installed in Windows, while Notepad ++ is an open-source program developed by Don Ho to edit text and source code, it is much advanced than Notepad and more preferable for programming text editing.
Differing from Notepad, Notepad++ has the autosave option by default. Via menu > Settings > Preferences > Backup > Enable session snapshot and periodic backup, Notepad++ users are allowed to recover unsaved notes easily, even after restarting the app.
Unsaved files in Notepad++ will be automatically backed up and saved to its temporary folder on the local disk of Windows 11/10. The Notepad++ temp files location is C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Notepad++\backup.
Notepad files with .txt extension are widely used in computer industry. To prevent Notepad text files from being unsaved or deleted somehow, always remember to save and backup them if necessary. If unluckily you have lost a Notepad text file already, don’t fret, try using Cisdem Data Recovery for Windows, the best software to recover Notepad files on all Windows versions (11, 10, 8, 7).
Zoey shows a great interest in what she does. Although not long with Cisdem, she has possessed a professional understanding of data recovery.
Stanley M. Clark
I found the unsaved file in temporary folder, but could not open it, how can I open it and restore? The file saved a list of license keys, it is important to me.
Pauline Trawick
I lost one of my Notepad file. Cisdem Data Recovery fixed my problem. Much appreciated. I have also read other methods and added your article URL to bookmarks in case of any future problems......
Paul C
This is good stuff! Thank you for sharing your wisdom on a common issue. I like notepad but hate it for this reason. Though I did not find what I was looking for, I will try 3rd party. thank you again!