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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).
A family of Microsoft spreadsheet software with tools for analyzing, charting, and communicating data.
Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
This is the standard first step, but not at all helpful here. OP and several commenters specifically said that they checked the version history and there was nothing in it. And other responders, who have read the post carefully, have already offered other additional solutions to try.
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?
I lost a day's work today when this happened. I tried everything in this thread and IT support couldn't find it either. I thought it might have happened because the internet went out for a couple minutes and the autosave got interrupted. Then, tonight, the same thing happened to my wife on a file she worked on after the outage and that she actively saved and watched save before closing! Microsoft needs to fix this!
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.
Hello Ego,
Thank you for the update. I'm sorry to hear that the troubleshooting steps do not help in resolving the issue.
On your windows 11, kindly confirm if Storage Sense is not turned on.
Open the Settings app and select System.
Click on Storage in the left pane and then toggle off the switch for Storage Sense in the right pane.
As suggested, it is a good idea to back up your files with OneDrive
As an extra safeguard, you can set up AutoRecover in your app.
Go to File > Options > Save.
Make sure the Save AutoRecover information every x minutes box is selected.
Make sure the Keep the last auto recovered version if I close without saving box is selected.
You can refer to the article: https://support.microsoft.com/office/save-back-up-and-recover-a-file-in-microsoft-office-a7f0a209-ad22-4212-bb53-6cd8e801a6fb
If you have any more questions or need further assistance in the future, don't hesitate to reach out. I'm here to help!
Best regards, Oluwatosin.