Can I Restore Deleted Excel Files?

Whether you use Microsoft Excel for planning your monthly budget or submitting complex reports to your manager, there’s no denying the usefulness of this spreadsheet tool. That makes it all the more crushing when you accidentally delete an Excel file you’ve worked hard on.

Follow these three methods and learn how to retrieve deleted Excel files with ease.

Restore Deleted Excel File: Recycle Bin Method

Step 1. If you accidentally delete a file, head to the Recycle Bin. It’s on your desktop, and looks like a trashcan with a recycle symbol on it, usually in the top left.

Step 2. Double-click on the icon. This opens a file explorer window where you can see everything that was recently deleted. Note: These items will disappear after a few days on most Windows setups. Don’t delay before trying to restore deleted Excel files.

Step 3. Right-click on the relevant file and choose the option to “Restore.” Your file will automatically return to the original save location.

Restore Deleted Excel File: Ctrl + Z

If you’re a regular Microsoft Office user, you probably know that Ctrl + Z is the quick way to select “Undo.” What you might not know is that this function works in other areas of Windows, including the file explorer. In this example, a user pressed “Delete” instead of “Share.”

If you delete something within a file explorer window, simply press Ctrl + Z to undo the action.

After delete and before Ctrl + Z:

After Ctrl + Z:

Restore Deleted Excel File: AutoRecover

Step 1. If you accidentally closed Excel without saving your work, or turned your computer off before saving, AutoRecover should have your back. Turn your computer back on, if necessary, and reopen Excel.

Step 2. Click on “Open” and look for “Recover Unsaved Workbooks.”

Step 3. Click here, and you’ll see a new file explorer window showing any files that were closed without saving. They will usually have a title that starts with “Book” as they won’t have a personalized name before saving.

Step 4. Double-click on the relevant document to open it in Excel. You may see a pop-up window telling you if repairs are needed for the file.

Step 5. Once the file is open, you’ll see a Document Recovery window to the left. If there were multiple recovered files, they would all appear here. You can click on them one by one and choose which you want to save and which you’re happy to discard. Right-click on a file and click “Save As” to save to the location of your choice.