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 6. Total comments: 162

  1. Thanks a ton Ekaterina, you saved my life with this article....

  2. Hi,

    I want to check if I can recover an excel file which was stored in Onedrive but was showing an error message and when I clicked on the message I was asked to click on the version I wanted to save. I clicked the latest one. But somehow I lost the data and the copy saved was of a previous version. Is it possible to recover the latest copy of the document?

  3. Thanks! Your article saved me from having to redo a lot of work.

  4. Thank you so much, this (recover overwritten excel file) has saved me hours of rework!

  5. i found it!! THANK YOU SO MUCH!

  6. Thanks Ekaterina. Appreciate the tutorials. But I am still in a fix here.
    I accidentally answered "yes" to the prompt that you no longer need access to excel files on my auto recover pane (which popped up as you explained after power outage). I have spent ample time populating this spreadsheet. Can you help guide me please? Its a Microsoft excel 2010 document

  7. AWSOOOOME

    Saved the "save error" file. It gave my 4 hours back.

  8. *******************HELP**************
    My computer crashed and I lost an important excel document. AUTOSAVE did not save my document. I know it was working. Can I find the lost file anywhere.

    using office 2013

    Thanks

  9. After working for hours in Excel - my laptop crashed and I cannot locate the document that I was working on. I've tried the above steps....but, nothing is working. Is there another explanation of where this might be.?

  10. How can I retrieve a a version that has not been saved. The copy has been overwritten by a new version I opened. I have tried file info, manage versions and there is it a latest version other than the one I have opened.

  11. Morning i have worked that excel sheet in Server.After Excel sheet evening not opened.Please help me.

  12. Thank you!!!

  13. thankyou guys what a great feature i was panicing and thought i had lost my spreadsheet.

    Great information thankyou

  14. Hi, yesterday i m making salary sheet in my excel file.next day morning my friend replace my all data in my file, & their data add ,please give me suggestion ,hw to come my data????

    1. Today I was working on an excel spread sheet entering data, the data i entered on one spread sheet was duplicated in another sheet sheet in which the original data was wiped out, How could this be...what did I do wrong?

  15. Thank you for saving my life! I almost cried after I accidently closed an excel file without saving it....I worked on it for hours.... thanks!!!!

  16. Thank you so much for this article! It saved me from losing a lot of work. I can't thank you enough!

  17. I closed down an unsaved file and was able to get it back. Thank you.

  18. hey! just so you guys know, this method works for me when under 'manage versions'show up nothing at all and i just can't seem to find the autosave file anywhere!

    no worries!

    continue to use the search option but search your file name under Computer, and it should be under the folder Users\XXX\Appdata\Microsoft\Roaming\....something like that! It should work for any word file, not just excel.

    Cheers!

  19. I did some modification on some excel sheets few weeks back while the files are on an external hard drive. But unfortunately my system got turned off due to some updating process, and I couldn't save any documents.

    I recovered several files from the auto recovery option but not all the files. After 2 weeks I need those updated files I couldnt save.

    What can I do

  20. Autosave doesn't work for me either :(

    AND cannot copy and paste from the excelbee website, the VBA code from the link given above (http://www.excelbee.com/create-backup-copy-of-a-workbook-in-excel-2007-2010-2013#close).

    Nice of them to tell us to "Just Paste the code into your VBA editor" then lock down the page so you can't actually copy it from the page. :/

    AND the bit of code (Macro) that they graciously give us is password protected so you can't modify the folder location there either.

    Totally possible it's just me. But I tried in 3 diff. Browsers and even tried in the "Developer" console.

    I guess I could just type it all in.
    Why does everything have to be so hard!

  21. Fucking God fuck God it didnt god damn work!

  22. Thank you very much for this magic!

  23. Hi, today the 17th/Feb/2015 I have exported a report from SAP "Accounting package" and it happened that after hours working on it I remember saving it however I got frustrated when reopened at 7:31pm the Excel file prior to my email sending because it had lost its layout, feature and sheets are missing. It appears to me that I have tried your tips above but could not recover my original Excel file yet in MSO Excel 2010 apparently due to an older version (2003 or 2007) issue. PLease help me recover important document. Thanking you in advance

  24. I saved an updated document but some how kept the original document without the corrections. How do I retrieve my resent updates or can I.

  25. Greetings!

    My excel file crashed and the auto-recovery does not worked and when i clicked on the recent file i got this message that it has been remove or deleted but there's no traced of that in my trash bin. Are there any other way to recover this file? thank you very much.

  26. To day (3-1-2015)I worked for 2 hours and prepared a work sheet. Unfortunately I exited without saving. Is there a chance to recover the file?

  27. thanks for the amazing help, it just saved my day. I had accidentally deleted the excel sheet and stumbled for help on internet and came across this site. Your solutions just saved my days. God bless.

  28. Hi,

    Is there anything I can do if I have by accident clicked saved on a document and retrieve the information before I saved it??

    Many thanks.

    Helene

  29. I was working on an Excel file and kept clicking the disk button in the top left corner of Excel to save my work. It still did not save. When I re-opened the file, all my new work was gone. I've checked the Recover Unsaved Workbooks and there is nothing there. Is there something wrong with Excel? Is my work permanently gone? Why didn't it save my work? Please help and thanks in advance.

  30. Does turning the calculations to manual disable autosave/autorecover? Usually my Excel session autosaves my work, so I rely on it, but I had a crash yesterday and lost over 2 hours work. When I reopened Excel there was no autosaved or recovered version despite me saving the document at least once. Then I remembered that I'd set the calcs to manual, would this explain this?

  31. Thanks you so much.
    My important excel data file close without saving.
    I so worried and didn't know what to do.
    When i read your post, i very happy and i get my data back.
    I really thanks you.

  32. when i try to go in and manage/view older versions of my file, all i see is There are no previous version of the file can someone tell me is there any chance to recover the data

  33. I just opened a file that I haven't looked at in months. Significant amounts of data are missing! (It is a monthly income/expense sheet) I searched the computer and recycle bin to make sure I didn't somehow come across a different one I had started. I have printouts of the months I had completed so I know it exists. I tried looking in the two locations in your article to no avail...

  34. Hi From NZ. Im frustrated - I have MS Excel Starter. I have set AutoSave at 2 mins several times over the year. When System crashes or power cut, I look through to retrieve files but nothing at the location I am advised it is save to. I have gone through several instruction sites, and its confusing as they tell you different ways, none of which work. Im wondering if Excel Starter just doesnt auto-save consistently. Would appreciate some concrete advice that could not only accurately set up saving, but easy and consistent retrieval! Many thanks.

  35. Hi recently I copy from mu usb a file which I updated 30.12.2013 and name was the same name . but my wife has done some new data entering to the file already was in my lap. when I copy file from usb other file my wife was working has replaced and after copy the file from usb I worked on that file for few days. now I need the file which my wife was working on .can I recover it? I used recuva software but not found. please help me.

    1. Disk drill software may help u. It works for me. ?

  36. Excel crashed

    reopened - whilst files was there
    edited what it had lost, but before I could save excel closes with no warning
    no option to recover or anything
    excel 2013

  37. Hi ! How about if I have a saved excel on my pc, then I have a backup portable drive that i have connected to my pc. I transferred the files on my Portable drive then it asked me if i want to merge the folders and files, without thinking i clicked YES. now my updated excel was overwritten and it went back to July 2014. Is there a way for me to restore it? Thank you

    1. I am having the same problem...Can anyone help...?

  38. That was really really GREAT.
    Thanks

  39. when i try to go in and manage/view older versions of my file, all i see is 1 version only, the last one i saved. I was hoping to have older versions to choose from since the last time i saved my file, all of my sorting and such was out of wack! can someone tell me why i am not seeing older versions of my file that i can choose from to pick an older one... a version that was correct before i saved the last incorrect version...

  40. I am trying to recover an excel workbook and followed the instructions above, but I got the message that there are no unsaved versions? Id that possible?

  41. THANK YOU!!!! I just closed a document accidentally after hours & hours of work & when I re-opened the only thing that was there was the work I saved forever ago. Thanks to this article, I was able to recover my document with all my recent work. What a lifesaver!! Stick a fork in me, I'm done for the night but Ekaterina..bless you.

  42. I was making adding more data to a previous excel workbook and my computer froze. I had to turn off the computer. However, my excel file did not recover and did not show as previous version of the file.

    1. You are correct. The Autorecover feature in Office is limited and not foolproof. Furthermore, it doesn't function entirely the way it is supposed to. I have done extensive tests. I set the Autorecover to 1 minute. I saved my worksheet. Added some data. Waited a few minutes. Crashed Excel. Reopened it. And I got the choice to recover it. Good enough. I immediately added more data. Waited 2 minutes. Crashed Excel. Reopened it. Only option was to open from last save. Tried all other options to recover unsaved work. None worked at all.

      Office used to have an autosave feature that worked. But it got traded in for a hybrid feature that fails. Many business offices will work all day entering data without saving anything. Yes. Chances are the autorecover will save "something". But there is a good chance that under a crash some of that work will be missing when you try to recover it.

      Common sense tells me that an actual AutoSave function with user friendly settings make securing data easy. Most programs have it. Office does not. Some idiot at M$ decided to screw up a good thing. And this is not unusual for M$ to do that. If it weren't for hackers and IT developers, their software would not work at all. I don't know what they put in the water at M$, but their developers are of the worst kind. Just ask any M$ certified "genius" for help over at the M$ forums. You will notice that they rarely solve problems. But go to other websites and find your answers. Just like this one.

      1. Thanks... this really help restore my accidental mistake when I close my work without saving it. Thanks

      2. Thank you, Joe. That's why we published this article to describe at least some of the peculiarities.
        Before the built-in Autosave feature appeared, there were add-ins that periodically saved a backup copy of your file with timestamp. When the Autosave feature was added to Excel, the development of such add-ins stopped.
        We have been working with Office for a long time and instinctively press Ctrl + S after entering another portion of data :)

  43. I did it several times before and, today I closed the file after working of it for 3 hours and dint saved it. Thanks to auto recovery system it saved me lots of time.

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