If Microsoft Word asks you if you don’t want to save a file before closing it, there’s a small chance it will delete it instead. Some precautions will protect you from the virus.

“Save changes to this file?” Microsoft Word asks this question when you edit a document without saving it yourself. If you choose to save the file, in some cases it will be deleted instead due to an error.

Microsoft acknowledges the problem, but does not yet offer a final solution. However, with a little caution, you can ensure that your hard work in Word doesn’t suddenly disappear. Finally, the error only occurs in certain scenarios.

Be careful with capital letters and a number sign

Manually save a document before closing or specifying it Save automatically is already activated for the file, then you have nothing to worry about. The problem only arises when you forget to save and ask Word itself the question.

Even then you are not lost yet. Microsoft Word mainly deletes files whose titles contain the extension in capital letters (.DOC or .RTF). Also one # in the title can cause problems. If that is the case, you should be careful.

Workaround

There is another workaround: click “Via”. file To Options and select Save. Check the box for it Don’t show Backstage when opening or saving files using keyboard shortcuts To. This setting would also reduce risk.

If something goes wrong, all is not lost. Normally your file is in the trash. The error affects Word in Microsoft 365 version 2409. Microsoft is still looking for the cause and a permanent solution.