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
    2024-05-15T23:10:39+00:00

    Exactly, MS support is terrible, it's obvious there is an issue. I just worked on a billing spreadsheet since May 1st and made daily edits and added tabs etc. All of a sudden this Monday I opened up my spreadsheet and only a single tab and zero version history. MS had to have sent a patch or something because we all didn't do the same thing. I sell my customers on this service, how can we or they trust their services. May be moving to a product like Egnyte to better manage my important files.

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  2. Anonymous
    2024-05-03T20:13:46+00:00

    It seems like several people have had this issue recently. Anyone found a way to recover anything? My spreadsheet just disappeared and there was no history of me working on it today at all. I tried to recover unsaved versions, looked at my trash, etc. And I have been editing it for 8 hours straight (and saving every 30 mins to hour).

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  3. Anonymous
    2024-04-30T09:54:45+00:00

    The same happened to me this morning. I was lucky to loose 'only' a few hours work but an extensive one. I've been saving my progress throughout editing the spreadsheet. I have moved one sheet out of my main sheet to see all the info next to each other, linking the date within the sheets. The system notified me if I am sure I want to save the main file with references to unsaved document. I did, saved and when i finished, I moved the unsaved sheet back into the main one. Saved, copied the sheet, created a new one, starting renaming the new one and then it crashed.

    Nothing in onedrive, bin, temp files, unsaved etc. All lost

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  4. Anonymous
    2024-04-17T16:11:53+00:00

    Same just happened to me. I lost a whole month's worth of work. Thank you very much, OneDrive! This is what I pay monthly for?!?!! To have my files lost?!?!?! I will be going back to Google. You really screwed me over, Microsoft, and I have no recourse!

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  5. Anonymous
    2024-04-15T05:45:18+00:00

    This exact same thing happened to me many times even when I save my work. i am so tired of trying. I don't know what is going on - i used to love excel now i despise it!!!!!!

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