This Microsoft Word bug deletes your file if you name it wrong

If you’ve recently had a Word document suddenly delete itself when you save it, you’re not alone. Microsoft has confirmed a bug where if you name your Word document a specific way on your PC, it’ll decide to delete itself. Fortunately, it’s very possible to recover your file before it’s gone forever, but it’s still something to look out for if you use Word daily.

Microsoft confirms a strange Word bug that deletes your files

As announced on Microsoft Support, the company has confirmed that if you name your Word document with a capitalized file format (such as .DOCX or .RTF instead of .docx or .rtf), the file will delete itself when you save your document. It will also self-destruct if you add the # symbol in the filename.

Fortunately, the bug doesn’t permanently delete the file – it just moves it into the Recycle Bin. As such, if one of your Word files was affected by this strange issue, check in there and you should find it again. If you want to dodge the bug, Microsoft suggests manually saving the document before closing, as the bug only seems to occur if you click the X at the top right of the window and save it that way. The company also suggests visiting ” File > Options > Save > Don’t show the Backstage when opening or saving files with keyboard shortcuts” and enabling this feature until Microsoft rolls out a fix.

If you don’t want to risk your documents with this nasty bug, why not try out the online version of Word? It’s all saved on the cloud, so it’s unaffected by this strange issue. Plus, there are plenty of reasons why you should use the free web version of Microsoft Office instead of Google Docs.