Have you opened an attachement from outlook and modified it all the day and saved and exited??? dont know where the file is saved? here is the way to find it out. and to recover all your work.
When you open attachments from the email message before saving to the hard drive, Outlook places copies in the SecureTemp folder. This folder is a hidden folder under Temporary Internet files.
If you want to quicly find the saved files.
Windows XP users you can find your edited document in these folder. Dont panic even if you opened it multiple times... Outlook always gives a unique name each time you open your attachment. So, you can easily recover your files. please note that, you cannnot browse to this location. simply copy the below location and type in your RUN promt or in your Address Bar in windows explorer or My Computer.
%username% is the login id to your windows machine from where you opened the outlook attachement. so, replace %username% with your Windows login.
C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.Outlook
In this location you will find a folder of some strange name. And you can find your files inside it.
C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\
Look there for the OLK or Content.Outlook folder.
The folders will be hidden, you cant see any folder name in this path. But just find it out by typing
C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\OLK
or
C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\Content.Outlook
Look there for the OLK or Content.Outlook folder.
The folders will be hidden, you cant see any folder name in this path. But just find it out by typing
C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\OLK
or
C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\Content.Outlook
Just copy and paste the above location in the RUN prompt. or in the address bar in Computer.
Background: When you open attachments on email directly from Outlook, a copy is written to a temporary folder on your hard drive so your the virus scanner can check it before it is opened. The folder Outlook writes this temp file to is under the Temporary Internet Files folder where IE writes pages to when you surf the internet. This offers more security as only your user account and the computer administrator account can view the files under this folder. The only way to avoid "losing" attachments in this well hidden folder is to save them to your hard drive, before opening. Few people do this (myself included).
These files are supposed to be deleted when you close the opened attachment, however this only happens if the email message the attachment arrived on remains open - this is either an opened message in a new window or in the reading pane. When the message is closed (or you wait to preview another message) after the attachment is closed, the temporary file is deleted from the SecureTemp folder. If you close the open message or display another Outlook item in the reading pane but leave the attachment open, the temp file is not deleted when you close the attachment.
When this folder gets "full" you may have problems opening email attachments or embedded images won't display. If you open image attachments in Windows Photo or Image viewer and click next, you may see old images you thought you deleted. Delete the files in the folder to fix.
