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
    2025-02-25T18:04:01+00:00

    Same thing happened to me today and I tried doing most of the 5 pages of things on this thread but nothing worked till I remembered PowerShell will do all of it better. Note: Run PowerShell as an administrator to avoid access restrictions. I used the following: # Restore from File History
    $filePath = Read-Host "Enter the full path of the lost Excel file (e.g., C:\Documents\Book1.xlsx)"

    if (Test-Path $filePath) {
    $fileHistory = Get-ChildItem $filePath -ea SilentlyContinue | Get-ItemPropertyValue -Name PSPath -ea SilentlyContinue
    if ($fileHistory) {
    Write-Host "Previous versions of the file are available in File History."
    Start-Process "control" " /name Microsoft.FileHistory"
    }
    else {
    Write-Host "No previous versions of the file are available in File History."
    }
    } else {
    Write-Host "File path does not exist."
    }

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  2. Anonymous
    2025-02-11T20:30:38+00:00

    My faith in the world is restored. It's so reassuring that when MS ruins someone's day, we the people stick together and solve it. Thank you so much @guestasaurus.

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  3. Anonymous
    2025-02-06T13:48:44+00:00

    woooow this worked Thanks a lot I was half dead with brain running crazy

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  4. Anonymous
    2025-01-10T02:18:00+00:00

    Same thing just happened to me was working on onedrive with autosave. Tried all steps from the other answer did not worked. (WIN11)

    But following steps worked.

    1. Find you file on onedrive.
    2. Right Click on the file
    3. Go "One drive" tab
    4. Click on "View Online"
    5. Go "File" and "Version History"
      or
    6. Right click on one drive icon next to the clock.
    7. Click "View Online"
    8. Open Your File that you need to recover
    9. Go "File" and "Version History"
      You will find all the version you worked on and got saved by onedrive.
      It is too late now but I hope it will help in the future and others too.

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  5. Anonymous
    2025-01-02T17:55:17+00:00

    I officially love you! I had the same issue as everyone else. A file that I work on daily and save daily showed I hadn't touched it in over a month. All the data gone. This worked!!!!! Thank you!

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