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
    2024-09-15T16:11:33+00:00

    I faced this same issue today. I lost few months of data that I worked on. It's stupidly ridiculous and I have lost my trust in this stupid piece of advertisement agency this stupid organization has become. Freaking garbage

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  2. Anonymous
    2024-09-02T15:11:58+00:00

    FWIW, the same thing has just happened to me, and not for the first time. I have a file that I update with financial information every month and it has just reverted back to a version from over one year ago. For me it is a minor issue, but it has really eroded my trust in Microsoft. I'll try migrating to Google sheets

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  3. Anonymous
    2024-08-23T14:59:23+00:00

    You're never too old to learn anything, Linux has some really good user friendly setups. Would recommend it on a separate machine though.

    https://www.debugpoint.com/linux-distro-beginners/

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  4. Anonymous
    2024-08-23T14:55:16+00:00

    Seems to be a frequent and recurring issue. Not the first time I've had this happen in excel and had to start all over again. I frequently save to PC and OneDrive to find the file is completely missing or a version from months before. Yes, I have tried all the previously mentioned steps, recovery on, check caches and temp ect. Not impressed. Trying to steer people away and use SPSS or other data management programs.

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  5. Anonymous
    2024-08-01T11:13:57+00:00

    Soooooo this is obviously a thing, then? Today I opened up an Excel spreadsheet (which is now in Onedrive) that has the monthly readings from my solar panel output for the last 6 years, only to be told by the programme that was a problem with some of the data. When it did the file recovery I found it had lost a years worth of data and provided this message "Excel completed file level validation and repair. Some parts of this workbook may have been repaired or discarded". Yeah, like a years worth of data that I don't have a record of anywhere else. I appreciate this is only on a personal level and not business critical. I am now retired, but if this had happened to me when I was working on an important document I would have been incandescent! My sympathies (for what they are worth to everyone on this thread. MS and their support team should take careful note of this issue - if people can no longer trust the stability of their programs they will migrate elsewhere.

    So its back to two separate backups (coz drives fail, don't they?) and a hard copy printed out. Jeez.

    Thinks to self - am I too old to learn Linux?

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