Accidentally saved over Word document; can I get old file back?

I was working on a Word document, and I accidentally saved over it as an old Word document file; I closed it.

Is there any way to retrieve the original document? Time Machine was never set-up nor opened, but can I still use it to go back a couple of hours?

Thanks for any help.

NOTE: Absolutely nothing to do with Hardware.
Moved to Software forums.

tbmg said:

I was working on a Word document, and I accidentally saved over it as an old Word document file; I closed it.

Is there any way to retrieve the original document? Time Machine was never set-up nor opened, but can I still use it to go back a couple of hours?

Thanks for any help.

Click to expand...

Unfortunately, no - Time Machine has to be setup and configured in order to use its functionality (you will also need an external hard drive to store data to). Barring a backup, there is no way to revert to a prior revision of a document.

The good news is, you've now joined the legions of users who have learned the hard way as to why backups are important. To put it another way, there are two types of users in this world, those who have lost data and those that will.

Let this be your reason to go out and spend a few bucks on an external hard drive that is equal to or greater than the capacity of your internal one. Plug it in, turn on Time Machine and enjoy the peace of mind.