How to Recover an Unsaved Excel File (5 Free Solutions)

So, you didn’t save the deleted file at all?

There’s still a good chance you’ll be able to recover your unsaved Excel file.

By default, Excel saves a temporary version of your Excel file (even if it’s unsaved) every 10 minutes.

You can access these temporary versions by following these steps.

1.1) In Excel, click on ‘Files’ in the ribbon and then go to ‘Open’.

1.2) Somewhere on the ‘Open’ screen, you will see an option called ‘Recover Unsaved Workbooks’ or something similar. Click it.

The exact words and placement of this button depend on your version of Excel. In Microsoft Excel 2023/Microsoft 365 it looks like this:

1.3) Your unsaved Excel file may be in the folder that appears. If it is, just double-click to open it.

And do remember to save it this time💾

1.4) If the folder doesn’t contain your lost Excel file, close the dialog box and click on ‘Options’ (still from the ‘File’ tab in Excel).

1.5) Click on the ‘Save’ pane and see the AutoRecover file location.

Your lost Excel files may be there!

1.6) Navigate to that location and look for your unsaved Excel file.

If the file is not there, don’t panic yet✋

There are still plenty of solutions to restore your lost data.

Read on!

If you’re running Windows, copy the AutoRecover file path from step 5, then press Windows Key + R to bring up the ‘Run’ command window.

Paste the file path and you are taken to the folder immediately.