Here is How to Recover An Excel File on Windows & MacOS?

It happens sometimes while you were working on a spreadsheet for a while and you haven’t saved the changes. Meanwhile, the application crashes or your entire computer freezes up and your Microsoft Excel document is not saved. This becomes a horrible situation.

Well, no need to worry Excel offers a fail-safe that allows you to retrieve some or all of that lost work via its recovery feature.

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How to Enable AutoRecover in Excel?

To retrieve lost files that you saved on your computer, first, you need to make sure the AutoRecover feature is enabled. 

AutoRecover For Excel in Windows OS

Follow these steps to enable AutoREcovery on Windows OS

Step 1 – Launch Excel and open any workbook.

Step 2 – Select File > Options.

Step 3 – Select Save, found in the left menu pane.

Step 4 – Select Save AutoRecover information every xx minutes if no checkmark is present. Here, you can specify how often you’d like AutoRecover to save your active documents by modifying the number of minutes in the aforementioned option. The default setting in most versions of Excel is 10 minutes.

Step 5 – Below this option is another called “Keep the last AutoRecovered version if I close without saving.” Enabled by default, it’s recommended you leave this option active.

Step 6 – Select OK to return to your Excel session.

AutoRecover For Excel in Mac OS

Follow these steps to enable AutoREcovery on MacOS

Step 1 – Launch Excel and open any workbook.

Step 2 – Click Excel > Preferences.

Step 3 – Click Save, found in the Sharing and Privacy section.

Step 4 – Select Save AutoRecover info in every xx minutes if no checkmark is present. The default setting in most versions of Excel is 10 minutes. 

Step 5 – Close the Preferences interface to return to your Excel session.

How to Recover An Excel File on Windows & MacOS?

As long as AutoRecover is enabled the Document Recovery interface will automatically appear the next time you launch Excel. This interface contains a section labelled Available Files, listing all autosaved workbooks along with the document name and the date/time it was last saved. 

To recover any of the files listed, select the arrow accompanying its details, then select Open. To remove AutoRecovered files that are no longer needed, select the arrow, then select Delete.

Remember: If the file you’re looking for is not in this list, chances are it was never saved (because the AutoRecover time of 10 Minutes has not passed yet) and maybe permanently lost. So, if you are working on a system with no power backup options, then keep the AutoReover time to a minimum.

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