[Solved]How to Recover Unsaved/Deleted/Corrupted Excel Files
Last Updated on September 20, 2025 by Yulia Ilina
As a common data file, Excel files often involve a large amount of data when editing. If you forget to save at this time, or Excel is lost due to various reasons, it is a very annoying thing, because restarting editing will consume a lot of time for you. But don't worry, for this situation, this article organizes 4 simple methods to help you recover unsaved/deleted/corrupted Excel files.
Part 1: How to Recover Unsaved Excel Files
If you suddenly encounter a computer crash or a special situation when editing an Excel file and forget to save the Excel file, then in fact, the Excel program has a special function for this situation. Excel has built-in auto-save and auto-recover functions, which are generally used by default, and you can use them to restore unsaved Excel files.
Step 1: Use Excel to open a new file, select the File tab, and click the Open button, which allows you to open a new Excel file or the history of recently viewed files. Click the Recent button so you can see your edited Excel files.
Step 2: Click the Recover Unsaved Workbooks button below the edited file record to view the edited but unsaved Excel file. Select the Excel file you need to restore, click the Open button, open the Excel file, and then save Excel as you can restore unsaved Excel files.
Part 2: How to Recover Corrupted Excel Files 2010/2013
When Excel is not saved or the computer is suddenly interrupted, the file will be damaged. At this time, what you need is to repair the file. In the Windows version of Excel, there is a dedicated tool to repair damaged Excel files. Unfortunately, Excel for Mac does not have this feature.
Step 1: Open the Excel function on your computer, switch to the File tab, click the Open button in it, and select Browse in the pop-up options to summon the window for browsing Excel files.
Step 2: Select the folder that needs to be repaired in the window. At this time, there is an inverted triangle near Open. Click it to call out more options, and select Open and Repair among them. A popup will appear after this, if it doesn't appear, check that you have the Excel file selected.
Step 3: Click the Repair button in the pop-up window, and the software will repair the Excel file at this time. If your Excel file is relatively large, the repair process may take a long time and take several minutes. After the repair is complete, the file will be opened automatically, click the Save button to save the successfully repaired Excel file.
Part 3: How to Recover an Excel File that was Saved Over
When the Excel file has been saved but deleted, it may not be able to recover through the functions provided by the Excel software, and you need more methods to help you. According to different deletion cycles, this part summarizes two different methods to help you recover saved Excel files.
Method 1: Recycle Bin
When the Excel file is deleted for the first time, it will be placed in the Recycle Bin for the first time. The Recycle Bin is a temporary storage location for files that you have deleted from your computer, and it allows you to restore deleted Excel files in case you change your mind or delete something by mistake.
Step 1: Find the Recycle Bin icon on the computer desktop, double-click it, and open the Recycle Bin window, in which you can see a lot of deleted file lists, including Excel files. Filter by scrolling the window or entering keywords directly in the search box.
Step 2: After finding the Excel file you want to recover, select it and right-click to bring up the shortcut menu. Click the Restore button to restore the Excel file to its original storage location. Locate the Excel file in the original storage location to confirm that the recovery is complete.
Method 2: Excel File Recovery Software
The Recycle Bin has a limited storage capacity, and once the maximum size is reached, older files may be permanently deleted to make room for new deletions. So when the Excel file has been deleted for too long, it may even have been overwritten, then you will need to do it by using Excel file recovery software. Aiseesoft Data Recovery is data recovery software designed to help you recover various types of lost or deleted files from different storage devices, including Excel files.
1. Supports data recovery from a wide range of storage devices.
2. Select specific file types want to recover to streamline the process.
3. Deep scan thoroughly searches the storage media for more complex data recovery scenarios.
4. Recover specific files instead of recovering all files found during the scanning process.
Step 1: Download and install Aiseesoft Data Recovery on your computer. After starting the software, different file types that can be recovered will appear in the main interface. Select Document to detect Excel files in a targeted manner. If you want to recover other data at the same time, you can also select other types of data.
Step 2: Select the storage location of the Excel file before deletion, it can be your hard drive, external storage, and any other location. After the drive selection is complete, click the Scan button to start scanning for deleted Excel files in the selected location. After the Quick Scan is complete, you can see a list of recoverable files.
Step 3: If there is no Excel file you want to recover in the list, you can click the Deep Scan button to start a deep scan to get more recoverable Excel files. Preview the file and make sure it is correct, click the Recover button to recover the selected Excel file.
Conclusion
The above is the whole content of this article. In the face of various situations such as Excel unsaved, deleted, corrupted, etc., Excel software has a very complete recovery function, whether it is the automatic saving function for unsaved Excel or the recovery function for damaged Excel, you can use it directly. But if you need to recover deleted or saved Excel files, you need to use Aiseesoft Data Recovery, which can provide you with a recovery list of various types of files, so it is very easy to recover Excel files.