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
    2023-09-11T08:50:52+00:00

    Hello Ego,

    Thanks for posting the query here in this forum.

    Here are a few things you can try to troubleshoot the problem.

    1. Open Excel and click on File.

    In the Open tab, click Recent and tap Recover Unsaved Workbooks.

    1. Recover from auto recover:

    Start Microsoft Excel and navigate to File.

    Select Info from the left menu, tap on the Manage Workbook position, and choose Recover Unsaved Workbooks.

    find your missing desktop document and click Open.

    1. Recover from temp files

    C:\Users\User_Name\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Office\UnsavedFiles.

    1. Open Recycle Bin from your desktop or File Explorer.

    Find your lost desktop files, right-click them, and select Restore.

    I hope this helps! Let me know if you have any questions.

    Give back to the Community. Help the next person who has this issue by indicating if this reply solved your problem. Click Yes or No below. “

    Best regards, Oluwatosin.

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