How to Recover an Unsaved Excel File
(5 Free Solutions)

Losing an unsaved Excel file is a real painšŸ¤•

Whether you lose an entire Excel spreadsheet or just the latest round of edits, it can take a lot of time to fix the problem.

But donā€™t worry!

In this guide, Iā€™ve compiled the 5 solutions with the highest probability of recovering unsaved Excel files.

The solutions are written specifically for Windows 11 and Windows 10 – but Mac users can use most of the same solutions too.

1: How to recover unsaved Excel files with AutoRecover

So, you didnā€™t save the deleted file at all?

Thereā€™s still a good chance youā€™ll be able to recover your unsaved Excel file.

By default, Excel saves a temporary version of your Excel file (even if itā€™s unsaved) every 10 minutes.

You can access these temporary versions by following these steps.

1.1) In Excel, click on ā€˜Filesā€™ in the ribbon and then go to ā€˜Openā€™.

1.2) Somewhere on the ā€˜Openā€™ screen, you will see an option called ā€˜Recover Unsaved Workbooksā€™ or something similar. Click it.

The exact words and placement of this button depend on your version of Excel. In Microsoft Excel 2023/Microsoft 365 it looks like this:

Recover unsaved Excel files from the open Excel file tab

1.3) Your unsaved Excel file may be in the folder that appears. If it is, just double-click to open it.

And do remember to save it this timešŸ’¾

Find unsaved Excel files from temporary folder

1.4) If the folder doesnā€™t contain your lost Excel file, close the dialog box and click on ā€˜Optionsā€™ (still from the ā€˜Fileā€™ tab in Excel).

1.5) Click on the ā€˜Saveā€™ pane and see the AutoRecover file location.

Click to copy
Find autorecover file location to recover excel files

Your lost Excel files may be there!

1.6) Navigate to that location and look for your unsaved Excel file.

Autorecover folder to recover unsaved excel file

If the file is not there, donā€™t panic yetāœ‹

There are still plenty of solutions to restore your lost data.

Read on!

If youā€™re running Windows, copy the AutoRecover file path from step 5, then press Windows Key + R to bring up the ā€˜Runā€™ command window.

Paste the file path and you are taken to the folder immediately.

Kasper Langmann, Microsoft Office Specialist

2: Recover overwritten Excel files with OneDrive

If youā€™re not using OneDrive, skip to the next section.

Losing hours of work because you pressed save when you shouldnā€™t is a bummeršŸ‘Ž

But if your original file was overwritten, there are a few things you can do to restore a previous version of your Excel file.

2.1) Go to onedrive.live.com and locate the Excel file that was overwritten.

2.2) Right-click it and click ā€˜Version historyā€™.

Recover unsaved excel files if excel files saved in onedrove

2.3) Identify the version of your Excel file you want to recover. Then choose whether to restore a previously saved version (replacing the current version) or download it.

Recover an unsaved Excel file by restoring previous versions of the unsaved file

If you use the OneDrive application on your computer, you can just right-click the Excel file on your computer.

Then click ā€˜Version Historyā€™ to look for the version you want to recover.

Kasper Langmann, Microsoft Office Specialist

3: Recover overwritten Excel files using File History

If you donā€™t use OneDrive (or didnā€™t keep the file in a OneDrive folder), you might still be able to recover a previous version of an overwritten Excel file.

3.1) Right-click on your file and click on ā€˜File historyā€™.

3.2) Locate the version you want to restore in the dialog box.

Recovering unsaved excel files or (only works on a previously saved excel file)

3.3) Click the ā€˜Openā€™ or ā€˜Restoreā€™ buttons to choose what you want to do with the backup file.

Did you find it? šŸ”

4: Recover deleted Excel files

So, you deleted the file and want it back?

Here are a few things you can try, to recover your deleted Excel file.

Restore from Recycle Bin

4.1) Locate the Recycle Bin on your computer.

Read this guide if you have trouble finding it.

4.2) Find your Excel file (if itā€™s there) and right-click it.

4.3) Click on ā€˜Restoreā€™ and your file is automatically put back to where it came from.

Recover deleted excel file from recycle bin

Unfortunately, this only works if you didnā€™t permanently delete your Excel file.

If you did, then thereā€™s no way of getting it back without using 3rd party data recovery tool (and thereā€™s still no guarantee).

But, if the deleted file was placed in a OneDrive folder, thereā€™s a big chance you can get it backšŸ˜Š

Restore deleted Excel files from OneDrive Recycle Bin

Even if you permanently deleted your file, OneDrive still saves a version in its own Recycle Bin.

4.4) Go to onedrive.live.com and click on the ā€˜Recycle Binā€™ in the left-side menu.

4.5) Find your lost Excel file and right-click it.

4.6) Click ā€˜Restoreā€™ and your file is automatically restored to its previous location.

Restore deleted Excel files if excel document was saved in onedrive

Cool, right?

5: Prevent data loss with AutoRecover and AutoSave

Losing data is almost inevitable.

But you can make the process of recovering the data from an unsaved file a lot less painful if youā€™re prepared.

We recommend changing just a few settings to help prevent data loss in the future.

AutoRecover

The AutoRecover feature saves a temporary version of what youā€™re doing in Excel every 10 minutes.

If Excel crashes, you can access this temporary version using the solutions I explained earlier.

AutoRecover is active by default. If it somehow isnā€™t active on your computer, follow these steps:

5.1) Go to ā€˜Fileā€™ and ā€˜Optionsā€™.

5.2) In the ā€˜Saveā€™ pane, make sure thereā€™s a checkmark in ā€˜Save AutoRecover information everyā€™ and ā€˜Keep the last AutoRecovered versions if I close without savingā€™.

Enable autorecover to recover an unsaved excel document in the future

5.3) Here you can also change when Excel should save this temporary version of your Excel file.

The default is every 10 minutes, but you can easily change that. Try 5 instead.

It might not seem like a big difference from 10 minutes, but it can save you a lot of work.

AutoSave

Of course, we recommend saving your changes often. Just hit Ctrl + S to overwrite the previous version of your Excel document.

If youā€™re the type of person who forgets to do this (like me), you can toggle on ā€˜AutoSaveā€™ on the top left side of the Excel interface.

Enable autosave to recover an unsaved excel document in the future

AutoSave saves every single change you make in your Excel file ā€“ automatically.

And if you overwrite something, read here how you can recover overwritten versions of your Excel files.

That’s it – Now what?

I truly hope this guide helped you recover your unsaved files and restore your lost data.

Trust me, Iā€™ve been through my fair share of rebuilding Microsoft Excel files the hard way until AutoRecover and AutoSave/OneDrive came along.

But sometimes, other people are the cause of your data loss. If you share your Microsoft Excel files with other people, I strongly suggest you learn a bit about file protection.

Read my guide here and learn to protect your Microsoft Excel file from unintentional (and intentional) changes.

So, you might avoid being in a situation where you need to recover unsaved Excel workbooks in the future.

See you aroundšŸ‘‹

Author

Written by Kasper Langmann, co-founder of Spreadsheeto and a certified Microsoft Office Specialist.

This tutorial reflects over 50 hours of dedicated research and writing, based on my 10+ years of professional Microsoft Excel experience.

Last updated on January 18th, 2024.

One last thing before you go: make sure to sign up for my free Microsoft Excel course!