This Microsoft Word Glitch Erases Documents Instead of Saving Them

Microsoft recently released a version 2409 update to Microsoft 365 apps. While the latest update brings several new features, a new bug in Microsoft Word auto-deletes the document while saving it. As reported by Neowin, the bug affects Microsoft 365 users who are on the current channel and have updated to version 2409.

If the file extension is capitalized, for example, if your document is saved as “file.DOCX” or “#” is included in the file name, the document will be auto-deleted upon saving it. Microsoft says the issue occurs after making an edit and saving the file. While the Word Team is investigating the issue, thankfully, the deleted document is moved to Recycle Bin so you can restore it swiftly.

I tried to recreate the bug on Office 2021, but it didn’t cause any issues, which means the glitch is limited to Microsoft 365 version 2409. To check your Office version, open Word and click on “Account” in the left pane. Here, under “About Word”, you can find the version number.

Apart from that, you can rename your Word documents to avoid the potentially dangerous bug. First of all, you need to show file extensions on your Windows PC. To do that, open File Explorer and click on View > Show > Enable File name extensions.

This will enable the extension for all files including Word documents. Now, check the Word documents and see if the extension is capitalized or not. If so, select the particular document, press “F2” and rename the extension to “.docx” in lowercase. That’s it.

Once Microsoft resolves the issue, make sure to update Microsoft 365 to prevent the bug from auto-deleting your Word documents. In case, you want to change the default font style in Microsoft Word, follow our linked article. And if you have any questions, let us know in the comments below.