How to Recover Unsaved Excel File? – 3 Ways

(Note: This guide on how to Recover Unsaved Excel File is suitable for all Excel versions including Office 365)

Have you ever worked so hard on an Excel file that it suddenly closes or crashes before you could save the file? Or, you might sometimes accidentally close the file without saving it. Whatever the case is, losing the file sometimes feels like a disaster. We all might have faced this scenario at least once in our lifetimes. There are various reasons you can lose your Excel file if you haven’t saved it.

If you want that particular file back, there are a couple of methods to get back the file before it’s permanently lost.

In this article, I will tell you how to recover unsaved Excel file in 3 easy ways.

You’ll Learn:

Recovering the Current Version of a Previously Saved Excel File
Recover a Completely Unsaved File
Additional Precautions

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Recovering the Current Version of a Previously Saved Excel File

There might be some cases where you would have forgotten to save your additional work in an already saved file. In such cases, you can use the below-given method to recover the recently lost version of the Excel file.

First, open the Excel file you want to recover.

Navigate to the File main menu and click on Info.

Click on the dropdown from Manage Workbook and click on Recover Unsaved Workbooks.

In other cases, you might even find the unsaved version of the Excel file in the Manage Workbook section. Click on the file with the added tag (when I closed without saving).

This opens the Excel file with the added changes that were not saved.

Now, you can click on the Save As button in the banner to save the changes.

Recover a Completely Unsaved File

Imagine you are working on an Excel file and you haven’t saved it, not even once. Suddenly your system crashes and the Excel file abruptly closes. This is a very common scenario that occurs to almost everyone.

If you want to recover the Excel file, even though it is not saved even once, you can use the below-given methods.

From the Document Recovery Pane

This is a straightforward method to recover an Excel file.

Open any new workbook or an existing workbook in Excel.

Once you open the workbook, you can see the Document Recovery pane towards the left of the workbook by default.

In the Document Recovery pane, you can see the Excel file you have been recently working on.

Click on the dropdown next to the file to see additional options. You can either choose to View the Excel file and then save the file or directly save the file using the Save As option.

Using the Recover Unsaved Workbooks Option

Another way to recover unsaved Excel file is by using the Recover Unsaved Workbooks option.

To recover the file, first, open an empty workbook or an existing Excel workbook.

Navigate to the File main menu ribbon and click Open.

Go to the Recent tab and click on the Recover Unsaved Workbooks option at the bottom.

This opens a dialog box where you can locate the unsaved file.

Select the file and click Open.

This opens the existing version of the file in Excel.

You can click on the Restore button in the banner or navigate to File and save the file.

From AutoRecover Folder

Another way to recover the unsaved Excel file is by navigating to the folder that contains the recovery files and opening them.

Open any new workbook or an existing workbook.

Navigate to File and click on Options.

This opens the Excel Options dialog box. Click on the Save category and copy the file location in the AutoRecover file location section. This is the place where unsaved Excel files are stored in case of mishaps.

Open File Explorer on your PC.

Paste the copied address in the address bar and press Enter.

Now, open the folder which contains the recovered version of the file you were looking for. These files are stored in Microsoft Excel Binary Worksheet format.

Double-click to open the file.

Now, you can click on Restore or navigate to File and use the Save As button to save the file. The files will be saved in .xlsx Excel Workbook format by default.

Additional Precautions

Although the above-mentioned methods seem to be a way to recover unsaved Excel files, they are not foolproof. Sometimes, it is better to take some precautionary measures to prevent losing important files.

AutoRecover

AutoRecover is a very useful feature in Excel which creates a temporary version of the existing Excel file. This option is enabled in Excel by default.

If you want to make additional customizations to the AutoRecover option, navigate to File and click on Save.

Under the Save Workbooks section, you can find a variety of options relating to AutoRecover. You can choose the time interval between successive file recovery or change the default path where Excel stores the recovered files. There are also other additional options.

AutoSave

Though there are a variety of ways to save an Excel file easily, we tend to forget to save the file manually. In such cases, you can enable the AutoSave option in Excel.

AutoSave is another useful feature in Excel that saves files automatically without having to manually save them.

You can toggle the AutoSave feature on or off by using the switch in the top left corner of the Excel window next to the Save button.

However, AutoSave only works when the file is stored in the cloud and not in local storage. And, if you feel like not all files need to be saved with every iteration, you can choose to switch off the AutoSave feature by using the toggle button.

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Create a Backup

AutoSave and AutoRecover are very good measures to recover unsaved Excel file when the application crashes. Oftentimes, the saved Excel file may be deleted accidentally or moved by the user. In such cases, creating a backup of the Excel files will help you retain the document with important information.

To create a backup copy, navigate to File and click on Save As.

Click on Browse or More Options to open the Save As dialog box.

In the Save As dialog box, click on the dropdown from Tools and select General Options.

This opens the General Options dialog box. Check the checkbox for Always create backup and click OK.

Additionally, you can also choose to set a password to protect the Excel file.

Once you create a backup copy, every change you make to the original file will be reflected in the backup file when you save.

Frequently Asked Questions

How can we recover unsaved Excel files?

Excel always saves a recovery version of the file in any folder or within the application to recover the file in case of mishaps. You can recover the unsaved files from the Manage Documents section or the Document Recovery pane.

What are some easy ways to save an Excel file?

Using the shortcut key Ctrl+S is the easiest way to save an Excel file. Also, you can click on the Save button in the title bar on the top-left corner of the Excel window to save the file.

Where can I find the Manage Documents option in Excel?

You can find the Manage Documents option by navigating to File and clicking on Info. The Manage Documents option contains unsaved files or previous versions of the particular Excel file.

Closing Thoughts

In this article, we saw how to recover unsaved Excel file in 3 easy ways. You can either recover the Excel file from the Document Recovery pane, using the Recover Unsaved Workbooks button, by navigating to the AutoRecover folder or from the Manage Documents dropdown.

Though the above methods are functioning ways to recover an Excel file, they are not fail-proof. The only way to make sure your progress is not erased is by saving the file whenever you make any addition. Or, you can make use of the AutoRecover and AutoSave options to protect the file.

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Simon Sez IT has been teaching Excel and other business software for over ten years. For a low, monthly fee you can get access to 140+ IT training courses.

Simon Calder

Chris “Simon” Calder was working as a Project Manager in IT for one of Los Angeles’ most prestigious cultural institutions, LACMA.He taught himself to use Microsoft Project from a giant textbook and hated every moment of it. Online learning was in its infancy then, but he spotted an opportunity and made an online MS Project course - the rest, as they say, is history!

How to Recover Unsaved Excel File? – 3 Ways

Recovering the Current Version of a Previously Saved Excel File