How to Recover and Repair Corrupted Excel Files in Windows 10/11

Followthrough any method below to repair your corrupted Excel:

Can I repair a corrupted Excel file in Windows 10

"Does anyone know how to repair a corrupted Excel file and restore all lost data in the file in Windows 10 PC? Yesterday, I was editing an important Excel file on my computer running Windows 10 when the Excel file suddenly crashed. Then I tried to open the Excel again, I got this error message 'There is a problem in this file, we couldn't open it'. Yes, the Excel file was suddenly corrupted. Is there any method that can help me to get my data back? How?"

It's no longer a new problem for Excel users to met Excel file corruption errors due to system, viruses, or other unknown reasons. So how to effectively restore corrupted Excel file and get lost data back become a new question. If you are having a similar problem, don't worry. Here we will provide two quick fixes and one complete solution to guide you in effectively restoring and repairing the file to get all your precious data back. 

Quick Fix 1. Restore corrupted Excel file from TMP file

Since Microsoft has an AutoRecovery feature that allows you to automatically save Excel files as a temp file on Windows PC. So when your Excel, Word, or PPT file suddenly corrupted or crashed, just relax and you can follow the below tips to cope with the problem.

Step 1. Follow the temp file folder location on your PC and find the Excel temp files with the TMP extension.

For Windows 8/10 users:
C:\Users\\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Office\UnsavedFiles

For Windows 7 users:
C:\Users\name\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Excel\ 

Step 2. Locate and find the temporary excel files that begin with "$" or "~" and end with ".TMP".

Step 3. Copy these files and save them to another safe spot by changing the extension from.TMP to .XLS/.XLSX.

Quick Fix 2. Restore corrupted Excel file from the previous version

Another quick way to restore corrupted Excel files is to restore these items from the previous version. Follow to see how to do it:

Step 1. Create a new Excel file with the same name as your lost Excel file or find your present Excel file.

Step 2. Right-click on the Excel file and select Properties.

Step 3. Go to Previous Versions, find and select the latest version or the right version before Excel crashes, deleted or saved, click Restore.

Complete Solution: Recover lost/corrupted Excel file in Windows 10 

If the former two quick fixes don't really help, relax and just follow below 3 steps to get your lost corrupted Excel back and repair it back to work again now:

Part 1. Restore lost corrupted Excel files with file recovery software

File recovery software - EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard helps you to recover deleted, lost, or formatted Excel files from storage devices or hard drive partitions in Windows 10 with simple steps. Download and install this tool on your computer, then apply it to get the lost Excel file back now:

Step 1. Select location and click "Scan"

Choose the drive or a specific folder on Desktop or somewhere else where you lost the excel files, and click the "Scan" button.

Step 2. Locate your excel files

To quickly find the Excel files from the scan results, click the "Documents" option in the left panel. Choose "Excel", and click "Preview" to check if the Excel files are the wanted ones.

Step 3. Recover Excel files

Finally, select the desired Excel files and click the "Recover" button. Then, select a folder to save the Excel files to another location.

Part 2. Repair corrupted Excel files

If the restored Excel file can't be opened or fails to work, follow one of the two methods offered below to repair corrupted Excel file:

Method 1. Use Open and Repair tool to fix corrupted Excel file

Stellar Repair for Excel repairs severely corrupted XLS and XLSX files and retrieves everything from the Excel workbook without modifying its original format. Follow the steps below to repair corrupted Excel files with simple steps.

Step 1. Select the Excel Files

Download, install and launch Stellar Toolkit for File Repair. Go to the software's home screen and click "Repair Spreadsheet".

Step 2. Repair the Excel Files

Browse to select the corrupt Excel files (XLS/XLSX). You can click on the Search option if you don't know its location. Once the file is selected, click "Repair". The software will initiate the scanning and repairing process.

Step 3. Preview and Save

Once the scan and repair process is over, the items will be displayed in a tree-view on the software's left-hand panel. Preview the items by double-clicking on them.

If the file preview is satisfactory, click the "Save File" button on the main menu. When prompted, choose the destination to save the salvaged file. Click "OK".

Method 2. Repair corrupted Excel by saving as another format

If you can open the corrupted Excel file with no data, try to recover corrupted Excel by saving it in another format:

Step 1. Open corrupted Excel file and go to Save As.

Step 2. Select Web Page from the possible file formats.

Step 3. Make sure that the whole Excel file is selected and then click Save.

Step 4. Find the saved file and right-click on it, select Open with > Microsoft Office Excel.

Step 5. If the file can be opened normally, go to Save As and choose an Excel format .xls or .xlsx.

Step 6. Change the file name so to prevent confusing it with the corrupted file and click Save.

Part 3. Recover data from corrupted Excel file

Method 1. Recover data when the workbook is open in Excel

If you can open the corrupted Excel and want to save data and formula in the corrupted Excel file in advance, just follow the tips provided in this part.

Step 1. Open the corrupted Excel file and right-click on a sheet tab > Select All Sheets.

Step 2. Right-click an Excel sheet tab and click Move or Copy.

Step 3. Choose New Book and select Create a copy box > Click OK.

Method 2. Recover data when workbook can't be open in Excel

If you can't open the corrupted Excel sheet, you may follow below two options to get data out of the Excel file:

Option 1. Set the calculation option in Excel to manual

To change the calculation settings from Automatic to Manual may help you to open the not working Excel file:

Step 1. Open Excel file and click File > New.

Step 2. Click Blank workbook under New.

Step 3. Click File > Options > Click Manual under Calculation options in Formulas category > OK.

Step 4. Find the corrupted Excel file and then double-click to open it, then you shall be able to see your saved data in Excel now.

Option 2. Use external references to link to the corrupted Excel file

Step 1. Open Office Excel and click File > Open.

Step 2. Go to the folder where the corrupted Excel is and right-click the corrupted Excel, select Copy > Cancel.

Step 3. Click File > New > Blank workbook.

Step 4. Type: =File Name!A1 in cell A1 (Replace File Name with the name of corrupted Excel file.) and then hit Enter.

Step 5. Select corrupted Excel if the Update Values box appears and click OK.

Step 6. Select cell A1 and click Home > Copy > Select an area from cell 1 to all cells that contain data in the corrupted Excel sheet.

Step 7. Click Home > Paste.

Step 8. Repeat to copy all selected cells again by clicking Home > Copy.

Step 9. Then click Home > Paste and click Values under Paste Values.

Pasting values will remove the links to corrupted excel and leave you only with the data by then.