I am using LO writer for a research project. I worked on my document all day yesterday, saving several times and creating a backup on my external drive at the end of my workday. This morning I open the file on my computer and it’s the file from the day before yesterday - as if I hadn’t written two very painstaking pages yesterday. The document info states that it was last modified on July 1, and today is July 3, so the work I did on July 2 is lost. So somehow it did not save when I hit the save button and somehow reverted to the older version? My computer didn’t crash, LO didn’t crash, everything went smoothly yesterday. I know how illogical and impossible this sounds. Let me assure you that I am of perfectly sound mind. Because the work is hard I am meticulous about my backup on my external drive, but this version is also the version from the day before, July 1!!!
This is hard research work I am doing and it is the second time in the past two weeks that this has happened and I cried hard over all the work I’ve lost. Does anybody have any idea what is going on here? Guess I’ll have to create additional pdf backups and save those externally…going back to Microsoft is not really an option for me.
To get useful help, you must provide a minimum of “technical” details. What is your OS (Window$ xx, MacOS y.y, Linux distro z, some other, …)? Which LO version (mention full version with at least 4 numbers)? Save format (odt, docx, other, …)?
How do you open your document?
- double-click on its icon
- open LO first and click on thumbnail in Start Center screen
- use of
File>Recent Documentsmenu
How do you save?
-
File>Saveor Ctl+S which overwrites the document -
File>Save Aswhich requests a new name -
File>Save a Copywhich also requests a new name but does not change current document name
How do you backup?
- from within LO with
File>Save a Copy - outside LO after end of session
Have you attempted to find your documents with your file browser search feature? Sometimes documents are saved in unexpected locations due to weird manipulations in the application.
You may not have waited long enough when saving to the external drive.
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Videos/Preventing_data_disaster
Accidents happen.
Sometimes, by accident, you save in a different spot. It may also be that you saved using a different storage format. In both cases, a fresh copy is created and your original document remains untouched.
@ajlittoz already covered the ground, but here is a “recovery shortlist”:
- Look through the “Recent documents” list on Writer’s file menu.
- Look through the “Recent” category provided by the file manager (if it provides one).
- Look in the root folder of your external drive.
- Search using your file manager.
I guess you mean Microsoft Office, not operating system. If you are on Windows AND you save to the Desktop, then in the event of Windows going back to the last restore point for some reason only the file at the last restore point will be available, not more recent versions. Documents folder is not affected.
Another possibility is that your antivirus might silently prevent LibreOffice from writing to folders or modifying existing documents. After updates to LO add the new version to the antivirus Allowed List.
Hello, thank you all so much for your input so far.
I have Mac OS Sonoma 14.7.6. LO version 7.4.7.2. I work with 3 documents, 2 are odt and one is docx.
I open the docs by double clicking on icon in the finder
I save with the shortcut CMD+S
After the end of my session I close LO and copy the new files onto my external drive.
I would also like to mention that I have been working like this since October 2024 without any previous incidents!
and yes, I have searched for the document in unexpected locations without success. Like I said, my routine has been working for many months now.
You have a sensible workflow (unlike many others who think they do 
). Not much to do to improve that.
The only remaining straw I can see, that might be useful to clutch to:
Apple’s APFS file system (like its predecessor HFS+) is of the journaling/versioning kind.
- Journaling means that files broken by abrupt system shutdown at save time, may be rebuilt (and usually are rebuilt automatically at system restart). AFAIK this is independent of “application awareness”
-
Versioning means that you can revert to an older version of a document. My theory is that some system glitch may have caused a revert to the older version, and that you can reaffirm the newer version. This is not likely (hence, only a “clutching straw”), because:
- When reverting to an older version of a document, it is possible that the newer version is then discarded.
- Apple’s documentation indicates that APFS versioning requires application awareness. IOW, the application itself (Writer) needs to submit a “save new version” request to the file system.
While Writer does possess internal versioning (which requires some manual interaction), I don’t believe that it utilizes available external, file system versioning. I may be wrong.
Relevant to the file system versioning, I found a tool that appears promising: the “revisionist”. Note that I have not tried it myself, nor checked whether it is trustworthy, or even safe (for all I know it may be malware). The info provided up front at the page appears genuinely honest and “philanthropic”, but still: investigate before use, and use at own accord!
Good luck!
Try Timestamp backup extension in the future. https://extensions.libreoffice.org/en/extensions/show/42030
Maybe, just before you close the file and after the last save, click File > Save a Copy to the external drive. If the first location is not written there is still a chance that the second location will be OK as it is written independently.
Does LibreOffice have full file access?