7 Ways to Recover Unsaved or Deleted Photoshop Files 2026

You may come to the similar situation and I understand how important it is to restore unsaved Photoshop files. By following our guide, you can recover Photoshop files no matter they are unsaved after crash, deleted, lost, or corrupted on Mac or PC.

 Cisdem Data Recovery for Mac and Windows 

Quickly Recover Photoshop Files with Several Clicks

• Recover unsaved, deleted, formatted, or lost Photoshop files
• Highly compatible with Adobe Photoshop version 27, 26, 25, 24, 23, etc.
• Also recover unsaved Word, Excel, Powerpoint, WPS, PSD, Keynote, Pages, etc.
• Retrieve Photoshop files from internal hard drive, external hard drive, SD card, USB, Linux, NAS and others
• Recover 1000+ types of file: video, audio, photo, document, email, archive, etc.
• Repair damaged videos, photos and documents
• Fast search files with filter tool
• Preview files before recovery
• Recover files to local drive or Cloud

Free Download macOS 10.15 or later Free Download Windows 11/10/8/7

Part 1. Where's Photoshop Autosave Location?

Photoshop can save a backup of your work to the AutoRecover folder at specified intervals, if you have enabled this feature on your device. Once your app crashes, or leaving your Photoshop files unsaved for some other reasons, Photoshop's autosave feature will take effect, showing your file in the app when opening the app again, or you can go to the AutoRecover location as follows to find back the unsaved files: 

For Windows users: C:\Users\[YourUsername]\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop [Version]\AutoRecover

For Mac users: /Users/[YourUsername]/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Adobe Photoshop [Version]/AutoRecover

Part 2. Best Photoshop Recovery Software

Among many solutions to recover PSD files, using a dedicated Photoshop data recovery progam is always the most popular one. Since a professional program is capable of bringing higher recovery rate and allowing users to find back files under various scenarios. 

According to users, Cisdem Data Recovery is the best Photosshop recovery software. It is designed to recover photos, images, videos, documents, music, archives and emails from various storage media. Whether your Photoshop files are left unsaved due to app crashes, power failure or improper operations, or your PSD files are mistakenly deleted, you can always rescue them back with this professional Photoshop file recovery tool.

Main Features of Cisdem Data Recovery

• Recover lost files under virtually all data loss situations: delete, format, app crash, virus attack, system glitches, etc.
• Recover unsaved office documents like Word, Excel, Powerpoint, WPS, PSD, etc.
• Repair damaged videos, photos, documents
• Recover 1000+ types of files: videos, photos, documents, emails, bookmarks, archives, etc.
• Preview recoverable files before recovery
• Save recovered files to local drive or to cloud
• Support various types of storage device: internal Mac/PC disk, HDD, SSD, USB, SD card, NAS, Linux, RAID, Partition, etc.

How to Recover Unsaved or Deleted Photoshop Files with Cisdem?

1. Download and Install Cisdem Data Recovery.
   Cisdem offers a free trial for both Windows and macOS, you can download the program and follow the instructions to install.
   Free Download Windows 11/10/8/7Free Download macOS 10.15 or later
2. Choose the location to scan.
   Go to Hardware Disk, choose the hard drive where your PSD files were stored.
3. Click on Search for Lost Data to find the Photoshop files.  
   To recover unsaved Photoshop file, go to Type > Unsaved Files > PSD.
4. (Optional) Check Pictures category.
   If your files are not available in the Unsaved Files category, or you are looking for deleted PSD files, you can go to Type > Pictures > PSD to search your files. 
5. Recover Photoshop file.
   Select the Photsoshop files by checking the boxes, and click Recover to restore them back.

Part 3. How to Recover Unsaved Photoshop File on Mac or Windows?

Losing an unsaved Photoshop file might be a tragedy, but there are ways to rescue. In this section, we’ll walk you through 5 practical ways to recover unsaved Photoshop files on both Mac and Windows, helping you quickly restore your work and get back on track.

#1 Recover Unsaved Photoshop File with AutoSave

As we mentioned in Part 1, Adobe Photoshop auto saves files. If you have configured the AutoSave setting, the next time you open Photoshop app after crash or unexpected quit, you will see the auto saved PSD files. If it wouldn’t show the autosaved files automatically, you can also find them manually in paths as following, depending on your device.

Steps to Recover Unsaved Photoshop Files on Mac with AutoSave

1. Go to Finder.
2. Click Go > Go to Folder, then input: /Users/[YourUsername]/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Adobe Photoshop [Version]/AutoRecover.
3. Then find the unsaved Photoshop files on your Mac, open and save them.

Steps to Recover Unsaved Photoshop Files on Windows with AutoSave

1. Open File Explorer on PC.
2. Navigate to C:\Users\[YourUsername]\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop [Version]\AutoRecover.
3. Open the unsaved PSD file with psb file extension using Photoshop, edit or save as needed.

#2 Recover Unsaved Photoshop File from Temp Folder

When a new PSD file is being created, its temporary file is also created to contain information. Normally, the temporary file is supposed to be automatically deleted after closing the Photoshop app. But sometimes due to the crappy file management of Photoshop, the temporary file may still stick around. In such case, you can simply follow steps below and get hands on where to find Photoshop temporary files on Mac.

Steps to Recover Unsaved Photoshop File from Temp Folder on Mac

1. Go to Finder > Application > Terminal, run it on your Mac.
2. Enter “open $TMPDIR” and press “Enter” in Terminal.
3. Then go to “Temporaryitems”, find the PSD file and open with Photoshop to save it on your Mac.

Steps to Recover Unsaved Photoshop File from Temp Folder on Windows

1. Press Window+R on PC to open Run window.
2. Then input %temp% to navigate to Temp folder directly.
3. Browse the temporary files, open and save the unsaved Photoshop files in Photoshop on your PC.

#3 Recover Unsaved Photoshop File from PS Recent Tab

Many Photoshop users may not know that they can recover Photoshop files directly in Photoshop app whether the files are unsaved, deleted or lost. Here are the right steps to recover unsaved Photoshop files from Recent tab within Photoshop. Though it is not 100% for sure to restore an unsaved Photoshop file in this way, it is worth a try.

1. Open Photoshop application on your Mac or PC.
2. Click “File” in the menu bar and select “Open Recent”.
3. Choose the PSD file you want to recover in the recently opened list. Then you can edit or save it as needed.

#4 Search Unsaved Photoshop File

Or, have you ever thought about that, you did not leave a Photoshop file unsaved or it was not missing. You just moved them to a different location, and the files were sitting there quietely on your device. Therefore, we recommend you searching your files carefully again from Recent folder or across your device.

1. Launch Finder App on Mac or open File Explorer on Windows. 
2. Go to Recents folder on the left side. Or use the search tool to index Photoshop files on your device.
3. Find the unsaved Photoshop file and open with Adobe Photoshop to save it.

Part 4. How to Restore Deleted Photoshop File on Mac or Windows?

Deleted a PSD file? No matter is a recent deletion, or a permanent deletion by purging your trash bin, it is still possible to recover. Besides using Cisdem Data Recover to recover deleted Photoshop files as we demonstrated in Part 2, there are 2 additional ways to perform Photoshop recovery, 100% free.

#1 Recover Deleted Photoshop File via Adobe Creative Cloud

Creative Cloud comes in handy when you have accidentally deleted a PSD file or when your Photoshop file gets lost after the computer glitch. Once you have Adobe Creative Cloud account and have set up the sync option, missing Photoshop files can be easily restored from this online storage.

1. Sign in with your Adobe Creative Cloud account.
2. Select the Deleted folder.
3. Find your lost PSD file and click Restore icon for recovery.

#2 Recover Deleted Photoshop File Using Freeware

If you don't mind spending some time on recovering lost or deleted Photoshop files but want a free solution, you can try PhotoRec, a text-based program to do data recovery with command lines. It can restore photos, videos, audios, documents and others from both internal and external hard drive. Also, it has both macOS and Windows versions, here we will show you the steps on a Mac.

1. Download and install PhotoRec onto your device.
2. Launch the program by using Terminal, you will be required to enter your Mac user password. 
3. Select the disk where you lost or deleted the Photoshop files, press Enter to Continue. 
4. Choose Partition and press Enter to continue.
5. Choose file system type and press Enter again.
6. Select destination to save the recovered Photoshop files on your Mac, press C to start Photoshop recovery. 
7. Once the recovery process completes, check the recovered Photoshop files in destination folder. 

In Conclusion

It is really heartbreaking to lose an Adobe Photoshop file especially after you have spent lots of time working on it. And above 7 proven solutions can handle all of your unsaved or deleted Photoshop file recovery needs. Moreover, to avoid data loss, it would be better to manually save the PSD files after any changes and regularly backup them elsewhere.