Forum Discussion
Possible to recover excel file if it's accidentally saved over on another computer?
I have a multi-use sheet that only I work on that autosaves and sometimes I use different computers. I made the mistake of leaving it open on two separate computers. On computer one, I created a whole new page and put hours of work into it. Saved and closed. I go to it later on computer two and the sheet is already open on it from a past visit. Before it had updated to show all the work I'd done on computer one, it autosaved with what was on computer two and erased in the cloud all memory of me doing anything. I shut it down and ran back to computer one and it saved over my new work. I realize this is probably written on some Excel ten commandments somewhere, but please is there any way to recover past cloud network file work even after you have saved and exited out? Thank you
I understand your situation and how frustrating it must be to lose that much work. Recovering the accidentally overwritten Excel file might be possible, but the chances depend on which methods you can try:
Built-in options:
Previous Versions:
- If you're using Windows with File History enabled, right-click the overwritten file and go to "Properties" > "Previous Versions". If available, you can restore an older version from before you saved on computer two.
- Check if OneDrive or your cloud storage has version history enabled. Some services like Google Drive and Dropbox offer similar features.
AutoRecover in Excel:
- Open Excel and go to "File" > "Info" > "Manage Workbook". Click "Recover Unsaved Workbooks" and see if your new work was automatically stored there.
Data Recovery Software:
- If the methods above don't work, you can try data recovery software. However, there's no guarantee they'll succeed, and they can be costly.
Other considerations:
- Did you have any temporary files stored locally on either computer after working on the new page? They might contain fragments of your work.
- Was the file stored on a local server or network drive? If so, there might be backup versions available depending on the system's configuration.
Prevention for future:
- Always save your work with unique names or timestamps while working on different computers.
- Consider enabling version history for your cloud storage.
- Utilize cloud platforms that offer real-time collaboration features to avoid conflicts.
Unfortunately, there's no single definitive answer to recovering your lost work. It depends on the specific circumstances and available options. But hopefully, exploring these avenues might offer a chance to retrieve at least some part of your efforts.
smylbugti222gmailcom It'd be nice if #Microsoft could add a feature to view version history offline as well for any data format (and maybe limit it by space 1GB or time 1 month, e.t.c). I'm having the same problem here, and I'm very pissed.
Data loss is the most annoying thing for anyone working with data.- Did you find a solution? I'm facing the same problem
- I'll also not that I googled this and followed the "view history" protocol which only has versions before the work I did and after it accidentally saved over. I'm trying to see if there is a more advanced way to drill down into more specific increments of history to see if my important work is hiding somewhere. Thank you
I wrote a detailed explanation, but kept getting this error message. So I will only say that I prompted - editor won't let me name Ai source - for a macro and I was able to fix 1,723 links in less than a minute.
The solution that worked with me:
go to this folder: C:\Users\YOUR USER NAME HERE\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\INetCache\Content.MSO
You will find many office documents with names as numbers and letters, try to open them all of choose the file with the largest size or the one with the date you remember.
I hope this helps you as it did with me.
