How can i rescue an unsaved excel file

By using the site, you consent to the placement of these cookies. Read our privacy policy to learn more. I have been working on a very important Excel file for a client, and suddenly my computer locked up and says, "Excel is not responding. We have all been there. It's a terrible feeling when you have put so much work into your file and suddenly you are forced to close it without saving, or the application closes on its own.

The best approach to avoid this scenario is to use autosave, but that doesn't solve the problem posed in the question.

The good news is that, most of the time, your file can be recovered. You just have to know where to find it. Let's consider two scenarios when you may want to recover your work: 1 You are working on a new file and have never saved the file at all; or 2 your previously saved file closes before you can save the changes made since your last save. Either way, your files may be recoverable but would be recovered in different ways.

You can access a video showing the following steps at the bottom of the page. For the first scenario described above, the way to recover your never - before - saved file is to, first, open Microsoft Excel.

You should see the "Recovered" option on the left panel. Select the option of "Show Recovered Files". Step 2. You'll see the Document Recovery on the panel anyway even If you forget to click Show Recovered Files and open a new workbook. Step 3. To see the most recent saved Excel sheet, click on any file listed in the panel.

There are fair chances that the file won't be completely up to date without losing any data. However, it certainly will save you a lot of time in getting everything back from the scratch. Excel makes it possible to restore your unsaved files when your computer system or Excel application crashes by accident. On the other hand, you can also recover previous versions of your files that could be very helpful in the case you made a mistake and can't undo, or you just want to have a look at the previous version of the Excel file as it was few minutes earlier.

You can follow these steps to retrieve an overwritten Excel workbook. You can see all the autosaved version of the files right next to the "Manage Versions" option. If you made changes to your spreadsheet in different intervals, Excel automatically saves multiple versions at specific intervals.

Each version has a time and date with the name of the file as well as the " autosave " note. To open a version along with the most recent version of your file, click any of the listed version. Now, you can compare the 2 versions and check the changes. If the Excel application closes unexpectedly, there will be an autosaved file with the label " when I closed without saving ".

There will be a "Restore" button in a yellow bar. Click this button to revert to the newer version of your unsaved file. Once you close the Excel file, Excel will automatically delete all the previous autosaved versions of the file. So, it is recommended to create a copy of your data in case if you want to look at the previous versions. You can find the temporary saved files and recover them as MS Excel occasionally saves temporary files as backups.

The easiest way is to open the "File" tab and follow these steps. When the "Recover Unsaved Workbooks" button appears, click it. This will open a window for file explorer containing some unsaved files if any.

You can still recover that lost document here is how. After reading this full guide, you will think about it the easiest process ever. So why are you waiting for?. Just go and read the full guide till the end and find the exact solution. Microsoft offers an AutoRecovery option by default that will tell how to recover MS excel corrupt file that have been saved. But it can not reach their newest edition because of the device or Excel becomes corrupted.

Microsoft Excel does everything it can to save your edits periodically. Office stores temporary files as backups, sometimes. Often, these files can be identified and retrieved. Notice: Remember, though, that there are no spreadsheet data in any files with a.

XLB extension. Notice: In any case, if you forget to press Show Recovered Files and open a new workbook, you will still see the Data Recovery panel. Read here If you want to recover password protected Excel files.