Microsoft Publisher is a simple desktop publishing application using which users can create a variety of publications like newsletters, business cards, calendars, greeting cards, and many more. However, like other files, even MS publisher documents (.pub or .xps files) get deleted or lost for various reasons like accidental deletion; one might have also lost Publisher files after crash (system or application crash), formatting drives with Publisher files, etc.

If you find yourself wondering how to get back lost publisher work or how to recover accidentally deleted publisher files. Then this step-by-step guide to recovering deleted Publisher files is here to help you recover your deleted, lost, unsaved, as well as formatted files with ease.

Table of Contents:

  1. How to Recover Microsoft Publisher Files?
  2. Why Do So Many Windows Users End up Losing Their Publisher Files?
  3. Conclusion

How To Recover Microsoft Publisher Files?

This section guides you through various methods that can help you effortlessly retrieve saved and unsaved Publisher files on any Computer or Laptop running on any version of Windows. So, without wasting more time, let's jump into it and start the publisher document recovery.

How to Recover Deleted or Lost Publisher Files That Were Saved?

How to Recover Unsaved Publisher Files?

How To Recover Deleted Publisher Files (Saved)?

Mentioned here are four ways to recover publisher files from any version of Windows. Note that these methods can only help if you have saved your .pub files. If you want to recover unsaved Publisher files, skip this section and try the solutions mentioned in the following part.

Method 1: Restore Deleted Publisher Documents From Recycle Bin

If you, like thousands of Microsoft Publisher users are wondering how to immediately recover deleted Publisher files. Then, the answer is from the Recycle Bin.

If you have deleted your Microsoft Publisher files from your system, you can recover them using the Recycle Bin folder. The Bin folder is where your deleted files and folders will be saved after deletion.

Note - This method only applies if the data has not bypassed the Recycle Bin. If the deleted data has passed through the bin folder. You need to try other solutions like backups and data recovery tools. Both of those solutions have been explained in-depth below.

Steps to Undelete Publisher Documents From Recycle Bin

If you have used the Shift + Delete option to delete your Publisher files, or for whatever reason, you did not find your deleted files in the Recycle Bin folder. Then, follow the solutions mentioned in this article to recover files that were deleted from the Windows Recycle Bin.

Method 2: Permanently Deleted Publisher File Recovery Using External Backups

The next best solution when it comes to Microsoft publisher file recovery. It is to restore Publisher files from backups.

One might have saved multiple copies of critical or sensitive information, important publisher files, and other data on other external locations such as hard drives or storage devices. Then, those files or data can be extremely important when one wants to restore files.

Backups are extremely helpful in cases of disaster recovery. External drive and Cloud storage backups are the easiest way to recover deleted publisher files lost for any reason and from any location.

You can connect your external publisher file backup drive to your system and move the necessary files. Or one can download them from Cloud storage.

Method 3: Restore Previous Version of Publisher Files

Previous Versions of the deleted publisher files can also be helpful in case of permanent data loss.

The Previous Versions option, when enabled, takes snapshots of various versions of the .pub files. These older versions of the deleted or lost files can be restored and used in the event of corrupted publisher files or other severe data loss scenarios.

  1. Right-click on the folder that contains earlier contained your Microsoft Publisher files.
  2. From the options menu, click on the Properties option and the Previous Versions tab.
  3. A list of all available versions of the deleted, missing, or lost publisher files will be displayed on your screen.
  4. Select the appropriate version of the folder that contains the publisher files, click on the Restore button, and click on the OK option.

The selected version of the folder will be restored. You can find the files that you want to restore.

If none of the solutions like Recycle Bin or backup solutions like the external backups, and Previous Versions have helped you in recovering deleted Publisher files. Users' last option is to utilize any reliable Microsoft Publisher file recovery Software.

File Recovery tools are here to make the tedious task of recovering files from Windows easier.

Method 4: Recover Deleted Publisher Files Using Remo File Recovery Software (Sure-Shot Solution)

Remo File Recovery Software makes recovering Publisher files easier and more straightforward.
Designed with a simple user interface that can be easily navigated by even the most technophobic users and tech experts. Remo’s powerful search algorithms can pull them back regardless of the reason behind data loss.
Download Remo now and start the Microsoft Publisher recovery with a few easy clicks.

Steps To Recover Microsoft Publisher Documents Using Remo File Recovery Tool

Step 1 : Download, install, and launch Remo File Recovery Software on your computer.

Step 2 : Select the drive from where you want to restore deleted Publisher documents and hit the Scan button.

Step 3 : During the scanning process, you can click on the Dynamic Recovery View option to view the files the tool has recovered.

Step 4 : After completing the Quick scan, locate your deleted Publisher documents in the Deleted Files folder. If you have lost your .pub files, the recovered Publisher files can be found under the Lost and Found Files section.

Step 5 : You can click on Filter icon and go to the Advanced Filter option to locate your Publisher documents easily. Also, you can directly locate your files by entering .pub or .xps (extension of the Publisher document) in the tool’s search bar.

Step 6 : Now, select the recovered Publisher documents which you want to get back and click on the Recover option to save it to any location of your choice.

Remo will start restoring the Publisher files in the selected location.

In addition to recovering Publisher files, Remo can recover Microsoft Office files of various types, including Excel files, Word Documents, and Project files from various versions of Windows.

How To Recover Unsaved Microsoft Publisher Documents?

Many Windows users are completely unaware that various types of files lost prior to saving can be easily recovered through Temp files or the Autosave feature.

Method 1: Recover Unsaved Publisher Files Using The Autosave Files Feature

Regardless of any particular reason leading to the loss of unsaved files, you can always recover them. As briefly mentioned earlier, Microsoft Publisher recovers unsaved files with the help of its in-built autosave feature that saves temporary backup copies of the Publisher documents.

Steps To Recover Unsaved Files Using the Microsoft Publisher Autosave Option

Method 2: Recover Unsaved Publisher Files From Temp Folder

Another way to recover unsaved Publisher files is by restoring their temporary version from the TEMP folder.

  1. Type %temp% in the search bar of your Windows system.
  2. Search for the files with the .pub or .tmp extensions.
  3. Once you find those files, you can rename them to .pub.
  4. Once everything is said and done, open the Publisher temp file you renamed, in the Microsoft Publisher application.
  5. Once those file(s) are opened, you can save them in any location of your choice.

If you want to know why you and many more users lose Publisher files, read the following section.

Why Do So Many Windows Users End up Losing Their Publisher Files?

Mentioned here are the most common reasons why you might lose your files.

Conclusion:

I are sure by now you have safely recovered not just deleted but also lost Microsoft Publisher files using the Recycle Bin and the Remo File Recovery Tool. We have also explained how to recover the unsaved files using the Microsoft Publisher application’s in-built tool, like the Autosave feature.