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Retrieve Workbooks

Brian Healy 0 Reputation points
2026-05-11T18:19:07.0233333+00:00

My laptop rebooted and I need help finding unsaved excel workbooks that were titled: sheet1, sheet2, etc.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Excel | For home | iOS
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  1. AI answer

    2026-05-11T18:19:18.2+00:00

    Use Excel’s built‑in recovery features to look for any unsaved workbooks named Sheet1, Sheet2, etc.

    1. Reopen Excel and check Document Recovery
      • Start Excel on the device where the reboot happened.
      • If Excel or Windows crashed with unsaved files open, the Document Recovery pane should appear automatically.
      • In that pane, look for entries that match the unsaved workbooks (they may appear with generic names like Book1, Book2, or with the last saved name if it was ever saved).
      • Select each candidate file and choose Open.
      • If it is one of the needed workbooks, immediately use File > Save As to save it with a proper name.
    2. Recover unsaved workbooks from the Info menu
      • In Excel, go to File > Info.
      • Under Manage Workbook, select Recover Unsaved Workbooks.
      • A list of unsaved files will appear; look for files created around the time of the reboot (they may still have temporary names).
      • Select a file and choose Open, then Save As to keep it.
    3. If the files had been saved before the reboot
      • Open the workbook (if a saved copy exists).
      • Go to File > Info.
      • Under Manage Workbook, select the version labeled (when I closed without saving) if it exists.
      • Use Restore to overwrite the current file with that version, or in Word there is also Compare (Excel uses Restore only).
    4. If Document Recovery does not appear and no files show under “Recover Unsaved Workbooks”
      • Only files that had an AutoRecover/AutoSave snapshot or were previously saved will appear.
      • If there is nothing listed, there is no additional built‑in Excel location to retrieve those unsaved workbooks.

    For future protection, ensure AutoRecover/AutoSave is enabled and, if using Microsoft 365, store files on OneDrive or SharePoint so that changes are saved automatically and can be recovered after a crash.

    References:

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