Lost several day's worth of work in an Excel file?

Anonymous
2023-09-11T07:06:01+00:00

I opened, edited and saved a file in Excel several times last week without issue. This included adding a new sheet, then editing it over several days.

The file is in my work account's OneDrive.

Today I opened that same file to find that all my recent work (the whole sheet) has vanished; it seems to now be a version from 2 months ago, according to the last saved date. So naturally there is nothing in version history, and I cannot find any way to check for unsaved recent changes, but in any case, it was saved and opened again several times last week without issue, so I wouldn't expect unsaved recent changes to contain anything except perhaps the most recent edit.

How is this even possible!! Is there any way to recover the many hours of work I have lost?

My device is Windows 11, I have a personal account and a work account on the machine (and I have checked; it wasn't saved in my personal OneDrive).

Microsoft 365 and Office | Excel | Other | Windows

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  1. Anonymous
    2025-04-24T22:20:37+00:00

    After 3 hours of looking, this was the ONLY thing that worked for me. Will be exporting my data from Excel to a different program. Never had this issue with Google Sheets (free?!)

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  2. Anonymous
    2025-04-21T15:28:59+00:00

    I can't recall which of the suggestions gave me the clue but I remember finding my lost file in a directory near where it was recommended, not exactly where specified.

    I suggest searching more generically such as navigating to C:\Users\user_name\AppData and then searching for *.xlsx (including subfolders) and see if your lost file appears.

    Also, a caveat: if you have saved the erroneous file, it might have overwritten the one you want. (OneDrive is a good idea on paper - less so in action.)

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  3. Anonymous
    2025-04-21T01:14:33+00:00

    I tried all the suggested fixes, and there is NOTHING saved in previous entries for me. I added copious amounts of data yesterday and EVERYTHING is gone. In addition, what was showing now, is from months ago. Even the data from the end of last year is completely gone! This is catastrophic for me. 9 MONTHS of data completely gone.

    WHY???

    If ANYONE has any suggestions, I would truly appreciate it. And I do use OneDrive AND I normally save an additional copy to my harddrive, so I just am lost as to what to do.

    Thanks

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  4. Anonymous
    2024-02-05T10:30:55+00:00

    Oh no!! Are you able to find other versions when you click on the drop down above the toolbar? At all?

    I’m so sorry that this happened to both of you!

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  5. Anonymous
    2023-09-13T13:51:41+00:00

    Hello Ego,

    Thank you for the update.

    Hopefully storing files primarily on the machine and manually copying to OneDrive, will not repeat the problem.

    You can also copy important files on an external drive for backup.

    Also, check out the article below on how to back up files using the file history: https://answers.microsoft.com/windows/forum/all/how-to-perform-a-backup-using-file-history-in/d269ab57-69e9-4467-9d06-3f13631e47d4

    If you have any more questions or need further assistance in the future, don't hesitate to reach out. I'm here to help!

    Best regards, Oluwatosin.

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