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Hi,
I'm hoping someone can help me with 2 xlsx files that have been corrupted.
I use iCloud to store my documents, I finished working on the 2 files in question on my MacBook in the morning and then later in the day successfully viewed them (not modified) on my iPhone using the Office 365 app.
When I came to open the files again, they are unable to be opened on any device using either numbers or excel. I have tried on my iPhone, MacBook and a Windows 11 PC. The error message is:
"Excel cannot open the file 'ABCDEF.xlsx' because the file format or file extension is not valid. Verify that the file has not been corrupted and that the file extension matches the format of the file."
I have tried changing the file extension to xls. I've tried to open and repair the files using Excel on Windows however that hasn't worked either. I've used a couple of trial versions of recovery software and the preview shows the first sheet is there but the remaining sheets aren't which are vital to the spreadsheet.
Does anyone have any ideas or experience of this issue? I've noticed the timestamp of last saved has changed to the date and time I opened them on my phone. I'm not sure why Office365 resaved these files without me making changes or asking me.
Thanks
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Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
Having the same issue - removing excel and MS 365 permissions from iCloud on my iPhone may have solved it though too early to know for sure
on iOS - Settings > Apple ID > iCloud > Apps Using iCould "Show All" > untoggle Excel & MS 365
Ok, so after about 5 hours of trying various things, this is what actually worked! Thank you so much, I was so gutted when I thought I lost my file!
The bit I was stuck on was getting Numbers to revert to a previous version of the file, as it kept crashing when I tried that. So then I deleted the Numbers app and reinstalled it, and I could then recover the old version of the file and save it.
The same thing has happened to me. To say I'm pissed off is an understatement. I've lost financial information that I need for my tax records. There doesn't appear to be any way of recovering the file as Numbers freezes when I try to 'browse all versions' on my Mac. Pathetic that this issue has been going on for months with no warnings from Apple or Microsoft
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After experiencing multiple instances of this issue with Excel on iOS and Mac OS in iCloud, I moved my spreadsheets to OneDrive and am now able to edit on iOS, MacOS and Windows flawlessly. I will keep iCloud for MacOS-related activities, but exclusively use my personal OneDrive account for file synchronization between multiple OS's. Maybe someday I'll be able to revert back to iCloud, but I'm happy to have my options back.