How to Recover Deleted Excel Files

recover Excel files


Whether you are a loyal Windows user or you have already switched to Apple Mac, chances are you still use this powerful Microsoft Office program — Excel.

An Excel spreadsheet is a quick way to deal with numbers and generate insightful reports, which you then can easily save to a flash drive or email to your colleagues.

But things can go wrong with the file. For instance, your Excel file got accidentally deleted or lost due to hard drive failure.

In this article, we are going to show you how to recover the files by using Excel recovery software.

What You’ll Need:

  • A computer that runs MS Office Excel program.
  • The original storage media.
  • Third-party data recovery software.
  • Internet connection.

Note: if you didn’t save some content on Excel, read this article on how to recover unsaved Excel files for fix solutions.

Recovering Deleted Excel Files on Windows PC

To recover an Excel file that is deleted or lost, we recommend RecoverIt — a professional file recovery program that aims to bring missing files back alive.

To get started, install it on your PC and select the disk drive (that your lost Excel file originally saved) to scan, most likely the file will be found. More Windows data recovery programs can be found here.

Recovery is free to try (scan to see if your Excel file can be found), $39.95 to buy (activate the “Recover” function to save your files)

To repair an Excel spreadsheet that is corrupted or damaged, we recommend Stellar File Repair — the best tool available in the market that’s capable of fixing damaged and corrupt Excel files and retrieving your worksheet data. The software supports Office Excel 2000 to 2016.

Free to try, $69 to buy.

Recovering Deleted Excel Files on Mac

To recover a deleted or lost Excel file, we recommend R-Studio Data Recovery For Mac — one of the most powerful data rescue software in the industry. No matter you deleted, formatted the storage media, or lost the file due to other reasons, this software will probably get it back for you.

More Mac data recovery apps are available in this review.

Free trial available, $79.99 to buy.

To recover data from a corrupted or damaged Excel file, follow the step-by-step guide introduced in this Microsoft Office support article.

Final Words

One last tip: back up all your important files, sometimes you just can’t afford to lose them. Using an external hard drive to create a second copy is a popular solution these days. You can also choose online backup services, such as DropBox, OneDrive, and Google Drive.

Losing an Excel file or being unable to access the data inside can be really frustrating. Thankfully, there are tools out there that could recover the content. Did you manage to retrieve your lost file with the software introduced above? Leave a comment below and let us know.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *