How to recover Excel documents

If you have lost an important Microsoft Excel spreadsheet or worksheet file, or you find that one has become corrupt, don't worry too much. It's almost certain that it can be recovered, and quite possible that it is recoverable without any additional tools. This article offers some hints and tips.

Recover data from a damaged workbook

If your workbook exists, but the contents have been corrupted or damaged, you can try to recover it. There is a built-in workbook recovery feature in Microsoft Excel 2002 and later. If you have one of these versions, start Excel, then click File, Open. Locate the file you want to recover, then click the arrow next to the Open button and select Open and Repair. When prompted to do so, click Repair.

If this doesn't solve the problem then try to extract the data from the workbook. Repeat the steps described above, but click Extract Data instead of Repair. If you receive the message "The document file name caused a serious error the last time it was opened. Would you like to continue opening it?" click Yes.

If you can now open the workbook in Excel, try saving it as a web page or in XML Speadsheet format, then reload it. Click on File, Save As, then from the Save as type: drop-down list select Web page or XML Spreadsheet. Close the file, then open the file you just saved. Click File, Save As, and in the Save as type: drop-down list select Microsoft Excel Workbook. Save it to a new filename so as not to overwrite the original copy.

Finding lost Excel files

If you have lost an Excel spreadsheet then it might simply have been saved by mistake to the wrong folder. Use the Windows Search tool to look for the file. You can search by name, or look for some text that you know is present in the spreadsheet.

One of the most common reasons why files become lost is that they get deleted by mistake. Look in the Recycle Bin before you start thinking about data recovery software. When you open the Recycle Bin, click the Type column header to sort the file list by type. This makes it much easier to see any Excel files that have been deleted.

Recovering Excel spreadsheets

If you still can't find the missing spreadsheet, you'll need to use data recovery software to try to restore it. If it was present on your hard drive at one time then it is very likely that at least parts of it still exist, though a lot depends on how much time has elapsed and how much disk activity has occurred since its disappearance.

Uneraser

If you're certain the spreadsheet must have been deleted then an undelete tool will probably get it back. Choosing a product that is not specialized to Excel recovery means that it's more likely to come in handy in the future, too. Uneraser would be a good choice to try.

Excel Recovery

If you're less certain about how or when the spreadsheet was lost, try Excel Recovery (or Office Recovery if you do a lot of work with different Microsoft Office applications.) If you create large numbers of Office documents then the powerful search, filter and preview functions will help make the recovery task easier.

XLS Regenerator

An alternative that is worthy of note is XLS Regenerator. This product can recover Excel spreadsheets from fragments of different copies of the file that may be found on the hard disk. This means that it could recover a usable copy of your spreadsheet when other recovery tools, that try to restore a single file, may not.