Comments on: How to recover unsaved Excel file or restore its previous version

Do you want to protect your workbooks from unexpected computer crashes or power failures? This article explains how to recover unsaved files and restore previous versions of your workbook in Excel 2016 - 2010. You'll also learn different ways of file backup to your PC and to the cloud storage. Continue reading →

Comments page 2. Total comments: 162

  1. Always a good resource for those of us who know everything BUT Excel!

  2. Many thanks for this, It saves my entire afternoon work

  3. Amazing!!!

  4. Hello

    I deleted something an important colom in an excel file by accident and saved this, I would like to recover the former version from last week, but can't find the former version(s) via 'recover unsaved workbooks' as there is no file versions history available... can I recover this in some other way?

    Thank you very much.

  5. I sorted a column on excel and it only sorted that column but it relates to all other columns - I closed it and I can’t find any of the back up worksheets / recover other files.

    It’s two full days worth of work :/

    Can anyone help?

  6. Hello - having a major crisis! My excel crashed and when I went to re-open, there was the option to recover all my latest files that I was working on but I accidentally closed it, and then realised it's only given me the version from like 4 hours ago! Is there any way to get my most updated file back as there's nothing in the recovery folder?

    Please please help as this is my biggest piece of work to date and I really needed to send it this evening :(

    Thanks in advance,
    Rosie

  7. Thank you!

    File>Info>Manage>Recover was a huge help.

    Thomas

  8. Hi,

    Is it possible to get last updated excel File? If yes, then please let me know the process.
    Actually I have updated excel file on 31july 20 and the same file overwritten on 1st Aug20 and closed.

    Now I need 31st july20 updated file. Can someone help me out.

    Regards,
    Naveen

  9. this was helpful to recover unsaved Excel files

  10. Hi, please help!!!! I have deleted some info off an Excel spreadsheet & saved it but now I need the old version back that had the info deleted. I have tried a heap of options found on the internet but none of them have worked. Running Office 2010 on Windows 10 PC.

    I have tried looking at the Version History. it was empty.

    I tried the manage workbook option, it only had an option to recover unsaved workbooks, clicked on it anyway & no files found.

    I have gone to the actual file & tried looking for previous versions, none found. Please please please help, it is about 3 hours work to re-enter all the data. Thanks Alina

  11. Thank you for the person who helped me recover my data. Thank you very much. This article was very helpful to recover my hours of unsaved data.

  12. Can I recover a previously saved document on Excel if I've saved over the top?

  13. When you can't find any recovered sheet of your data. You can manually check at path:
    C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Excel\
    Where you can find folder with your excel file name and your recovered excel worksheet is in it.

    1. This is very helpful

  14. Hello team,
    Need help

    1. What type of help do you want?

  15. Just reposting what other user posted earlier in the comments thread, to give it visibility for newcomers: if the autosaved file doesn't appear in the locations specified, Excel may have automatically deleted it when the software was closed. If so, it can be found in the Recycle Bin!

  16. Hello
    I was working on my excel package so i closed the document and after like 10 minutes i tried to open it again but it pooped a message that says we found a problem with some content in (my file name).xlsx. Do you want us to try to recover as much as we can? if you trust the source of this workbook, click yes.
    But when i clicked yes it recovered my file but i lost the format of my document which is even more important to me.
    Please how can i reverse it to that previous stage before it got corrupt.
    Thanks.

  17. Pls. Arrange to send my excel bakup which was deleted FYI

  18. I pull up a an attached file in outlook worked on it all day, and then closed it.
    When I opened it up again it was blank. The only file that opened is the one that I saved originally without the data. Please help. Janice

  19. Thank you!!!! I thought I had had all the options and that I had to do a whole-day administrative task all over again, but I continued searching a little more, found your tip to get to the AutoRecovery location and found all my work back!!!

  20. the manage versions does not show any other versions and when going to the folder of recovered files, its empty . Why this is so? Also though I had already checked auto recover every 10 minutes and auto save if I close file without saving option, I still could not recover my 10 minutes old file and got 3 hours old version instead :( Wanted to know why this happened.

  21. the manage versions does not show any other versions and when going to the folder of recovered files, its empty

  22. Hi,

    Is it possible to get last updated excel File? If yes, then please let me know the process.
    Actually I have updated excel file on 30th Nov18 and the same file overwritten on 4th Dec18 and closed.

    Now I need 30th Nov18 updated file. Can someone help me out.

    Regards,
    Naveen

  23. Hello,
    how do I perform auto recovery for an unsaved file on excel running on MAC HIGH SIERRA? Please help.

  24. How can I recover my excel file if I accidentally didn't choose the auto recover but I have pressed the save icon button beforehand but for some reason, it didn't save what I had?

  25. I was using my excel and chose save and it stated Not Responding. So I closed it and reopened Excel to open my file and it said it could not locate file. Could have deleted or saved under different name. I did neither. I have tried to recover it to no avail. I have excel 2016. HELP as this is where I store my small business sales!

  26. hi sir,my excel version is windows 2007, today i forgot to saveas the file which is already saved because i did some manipulations to my yesterdays data i forgot click on save ,it asked for do you want to save the changes so i forgot and clicked on no..so i lost my data..how can i retrieve my data..please help me

  27. This was a life saver for me. I accidentally chose to not recovery the files after a crash and so couldnt get them back that way. However I found it in the recycling bin, recovered it and then found the document here :
    C:\Users\yourusername\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Excel

  28. Thanks a lot for this post. Saved me from redoing 2-3 hours of work.

  29. I have a problem Ekaterina. I disable Autorecovery option in Excel 2016 (Office 365) for Mac and continue save two files all the same time. Even disable this option, save two files. What's happen in this case ?

  30. Hello, I've been experiencing some "non privileges" on saving workbook on my mac (10.13.4) and Excel version 16.12 (180410) Office 365 subscription. And I found your article looking for the place that excel sabe this temporary or recovery files, but in mac the screen aren't the same and don't show ~/Library/Group Container/.... the specific location on the file. Today morning I was trying to save, get this error and Excel said "Sorry we couldn't find /var/folders/asdasdasfsdfsdfsd/com.microsoft.excel/81909210" It possible to be renamed, deleted or moved? But you can find our temporary file 81909210 to open and save as your workbook. But I couldn't find this file. Can you help me on that? Thanks for the article.

  31. You saved my life!
    Thanks you so much for the tips!

  32. Thank you Ekaterina Bespalaya, I love you.
    Please love me back

    1. Can I love you?

  33. Thank You...I like your support

  34. Thank you a lot, guys - you saved my day :)))

  35. I WOKE IN EXCEL FILE AND WHEN I EXIT.IT ASK THAT DO YOU WANT TO SAVE DATA AND GIVE THREE OPTION.BY MISTAKE I CLICK ON DON'T SAVE AND NOW I DON'T HAVE THAT DATA SO HOW I CAN RECOVER THAT DATA PLEASE HELP ME

  36. I WOKE IN EXCEL FILE AND WHEN I EXIT IT ASK THAT DO YOU WANT TO SAVE DATA AND GIVE THREE OPTION BY MISTAKE I CLICK ON DON'T SAVE AND NOW I DON'T HAVE THAT DATA SO HOW I CAN RECOVER THAT DATA PLEASE HELP ME

  37. Very helpful article! It helped me to recover a file which i accidentally closed without saving. Saved a lot of my time.

  38. Thanks for your support. Great work :)

  39. Yesterday I was deleting files off my desk top and I deleted my time card by accident. Then I went into recycle bin and deleted. Is there a way to find the files I deleted yesterday?
    Thank you

  40. I CLOSED MY WORKSHEET AND FORGOT TO SAVE IT A FEW DAYS AGO. I TRIED TO LOOK FOR IT ND TRY TO RECOVER IT BUT IT WASN'T THERE/ DO YOU KNOW WHAT ELSE I CAN DO?

  41. Just saved me a ton of time redoing work after I hastily clicked 'don't save' on the wrong workbook. Thanks.

  42. hi I just saved over a very important document which has over 4 years of data!! any possibility of recovering it I don't have any back ups.

  43. Hello Ekaterina you are a life saver! Thank you this afticle saved me :)

  44. I am not understand

  45. Thank you for this wonderful piece !! It was greatly appreciated. 25 tabs and several hours of work were almost lost due to not paying attention to what was being closed out, if it were not for this article I would have been up a creek.

  46. This saved my BUTT at work when I had an Excel file that closed unexpectedly when my computer crashed.

    THANK YOU SO SO MUCH

  47. Oh, awesome! Worked for me, thanks! Love that not only does Excel do this, but there are helpful people like you who took the time to post online. Trying to find help within programs like this can sometimes be tedious. Gotta love Google search!

  48. hi

    I was working on an excel file located in an external drive, I deleted a complete tab and saved it by mistake; tried to go back to "versions" but says there were not previous versions of this file; i assume is because the file was on an external disk instead of in my computer.
    is it possible to recover a previous version of this file?

    thank you and regards
    Ricardo

  49. Thanks heaps .... a friend was working on a spreadsheet. Never saved it at all. Was able to recover all the data. 5 stars :)

  50. Thanks a lot for the article, i got my unsaved file.

Post a comment



Thank you for your comment!
When posting a question, please be very clear and concise. This will help us provide a quick and relevant solution to
your query. We cannot guarantee that we will answer every question, but we'll do our best :)