Overview
This document covers how to recover an unsaved Excel document, a previous version of an Excel document, and an autosaved version after a crash. This document applies to Office 2010, 2013, 2016 and later versions. These instructions will only apply for documents created or last edited by you.
How to recover unsaved Excel files
1. Go to FILE -> Open.
2. Choose Recent Workbooks.
3. Scroll down and click on the Recover Unsaved Workbooks button
at the bottom of the list.
Recover overwritten Excel files
1. Click on the FILE tab and choose Info on the left-hand pane. Next to the Manage Versions button you'll see all autosaved
versions of your document.
2. Excel automatically saves versions of the workbook at specified intervals, but only if you've made changes to your spreadsheet between these intervals. The name of each version has a date, time and the "(autosave)" note. When you click any of them, it will open along with the most current version of your workbook so that you can compare them and see all the changes.
3. If the program closed incorrectly, the last autosaved
file is labeled with the words (when
I closed without saving).
4. When you open this file in Excel, you'll get the
message above your worksheet. Just click on the Restore button in the yellow bar to revert to
the newer unsaved version of the workbook.