Excel file was damaged. How to repair an excel file?

The Excel file may have become damaged due to an interruption while saving—such as a sudden power outage, system crash, or forced closure of Excel. Similarly, transferring the file via unstable networks, faulty USB drives, or email attachments that weren’t fully downloaded can corrupt the internal structure.

To fix repair damaged excel file, try using Excel’s built-in Open and Repair feature: go to File > Open, select the file, click the arrow next to the Open button, and choose Open and Repair.

Sometimes, third-party add-ins, macros, or links to external data sources can cause instability, especially if the file was created in an older Excel version or imported from another software. Corruption may also occur if the file is stored on a network drive with frequent sync errors.

As a fix, open Excel in Safe Mode (hold Ctrl while launching Excel) to disable add-ins, then try opening the file. If successful, save it as a new file under a different name.