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
    2024-02-05T10:32:03+00:00

    Support: There has been an entire thread under your responses. Is there a reason that you aren’t helping?

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  2. Anonymous
    2024-02-05T10:45:21+00:00

    There is nothing there. I have lost three worksheets with information from the last three years. Just surprised and frustrated that this occurred to a file that is supposed to be safe on OneDrive.

    Is there any solution???

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  3. Anonymous
    2024-02-05T10:54:07+00:00

    My only consolation was the fact that I had emailed a copy of mine to my boss. Maybe going forward, emailing yourself a copy? Like once a week or something? An updated version? I may do that going forward, but I shouldn’t have to do all of that extra work and neither should you.

    Hopefully, the Microsoft guy can tell us what’s going on and where it “may be” in the cloud so we can retrieve it.

    I would be really upset as well.

    Good Luck to you!

    Jen

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  4. Anonymous
    2024-02-09T00:13:08+00:00

    Make sure that the file you are working in is an .xls or .xlsx workbook file and not a .csv file. .csv files do not retain formatting.

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  5. Anonymous
    2024-02-11T09:49:24+00:00

    I think we are all far beyond that. The file itself is gone, NOT the formatting. Please read all responses before commenting here. The formatting really has zero relevance whatsoever.

    Thanks.

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