[Top Tips] Recover unsaved excel file in 2007/2013/2016/2018/2019 !!

Synopsis: Let us discuss the tips to recover unsaved excel file 2007/2013/2016/2018/2019.

To restore unsaved Excel 2016 files in Windows 10/8/7, you may also follow either one methods below to get your problems solved:

There are many methods for retrieving Unsaved Excel sheets. Some of them are described below

This image explains the easy manual ways to recover unsaved Excel files in excel 2007/2016/2018 and 2019

Methods to Recover unsaved excel file in 2007/2013/2016/2018/2019

Method #1.Recover unsaved Excel 2016 with AutoRecovery

1. Start by opening a new Excel document in Windows PC.

2. Click File > Tab Recent, check recent used Excel documents and find the exact one – unsaved Excel document.

3. Click Recover Unsaved Excel Workbooks and then wait till the Excel workbook is recovered.

4. The Open dialog box will pop up, after which open the exact lost Excel document and click Save As to save the document into a safe spot on PC.

Method # 2.Recover unsaved Excel file

For recovering an Unsaved Excel file in Excel 2007/2016, follow the steps given below:

  1. First, Go to the File tab and click on ‘Open’ tab
  2. Now click on the Recent Workbooks option on the top left
  3. Now scroll to the bottom and click on ‘Recover Unsaved Workbooks’ button
  4. In this step, scroll through the list and search for the file you lost.
  5. Double-click on it to open it
  6. The document will open in Excel, now all you have to do is hit the Save As button

Method # 3. Recover overwritten Excel files

In case you are using Excel 2010 or 2013, then you can easily recover an older version of the document.


For this, you can follow the given below steps:

  1. Click on the File tab and select Info
  2. Now click on the manage versions tab. There you will be able to see all the versions that were autosaved by Excel application.

But you cannot view these autosaved versions until you have saved the file. Once you are able to save the current version of the file, all the previous autosaved files will vanish. So, for saving these files, you need to take the backup of the file. Making a back up of the file is discussed below.

How to Save a backup of Excel file?

Taking a backup of Excel files makes it possible to go back to older versions in case of any mistake. This can prove to be useful when you hit the save button when you didn’t mean it or when you delete the main original final.

You can follow the steps given below to get the backup in Excel 2010 and 2013 versions:

  1. Go to the File tab and click on ‘Save as’
  2. Now click on the Browse tab at the bottom
  3. A Save as the window will open up. At the bottom, the Tools option is given.
  4. Click on Tools and select ‘General options’
  5. In the opened New Window, check on ‘Always create backup’ option

From above, every new Excel file that you create will have a backup file associated with it. But now the backup Excel files will have a different extension i.e .xlk

If you are using MAC operating system, then you can use the next method to retrieve Unsaved MS Excel file recovery for Excel files for MAC Users.

Method # 4.Unsaved Excel file recovery for MAC OS users

For the users that are using MAC OS, there are different steps that need to be taken in order to recover Excel files.

If you have OneDrive, you can use the same methods explained above to do so. For those that were not using OneDrive, these are the steps that you can use:

1. First of all, Go to Start option and open Finder.
2. Now Go to Macintosh HD.
3. In case that Macintosh HD is not showing up, you may have to find another name on your hard drive.
4. Go to Finder and then Preferences.
5. In the Next step, select Hard Disks

6. Show these items in the sidebar option.
7. You can also go to Users, then (your user name). Next is Library>Application Support>Microsoft>Office>Office 2012 Auto Recovery.

In the next step, choose “Show hidden files‘ option if you don’t see any library folder there. You can do this by typing the following command into your terminal – defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles YES

While these may be able to help some people recover any Microsoft Excel lost or unsaved files, it won’t work for everyone.

The best thing that you can do to avoid this situation is to always save and backup everything. But, unfortunately, that is something we often don’t do.

Method # 5. By using Professional Excel Recovery Tool

To recover unsaved excel file 2007/2013/2016/2018/2019. I have mentioned the above manual methods for both Windows and MAC OS users. But in case if you are not able to get back these unsaved files manually, you can Download the Professional Excel Recovery Software By SysInfo Tools.

To Sum Up

In this article, I have tried to explain the Top tips to recover unsaved excel file 2007/2013/2016/2018/2019. Also, I have explained the manual tips to recover Unsaved Excel files in 2007/2013/2016/2018/2019. If these manual tricks don’t work for you, I suggest you download the Excel recovery Tool to do the job easily.

You can watch the video of how this tool works:

You can also read:

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About The Author:

I'm a content writer in the field of Email Migration, Data Recovery, Email backup, and File Management. I started this writing career two years back. I think the vast range of information in this industry is the reason I am so fascinated to read about the newer techniques and technology.

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