Recover Deleted Excel Files

Before you scan a single sector, check whether Excel already has a copy. It saves AutoRecover snapshots every few minutes by default, and after a crash it usually offers them on the next launch. If you dismissed that prompt, the snapshots are still on disk where you can open them by hand. This is the fastest route back to an unsaved or crashed workbook, and it costs nothing.

If the workbook exists but opens corrupted, Excel has a second tool most people miss: in the Open dialog, choose the file, click the arrow next to the Open button, and pick Open and Repair. It can salvage a damaged file that otherwise throws an error. Only once these built-in options come up empty does it make sense to move to a drive scan.

If the file was deleted and the Recycle Bin emptied, AutoRecover won't help. The workbook has to be found on the drive itself. When the file system records survive, a Quick Scan returns it with its original name and folder. When they're gone, after a format or heavy corruption, Deep Scan locates it by signature instead, reading the raw disk for the markers that identify a spreadsheet.

The format shapes the result. A modern .xlsx is actually a ZIP archive (it opens with the same PK header), so it carves back cleanly when the file sits in one contiguous run but can come back partial if it was fragmented, since a missing chunk of the archive can cost you whole sheets. Older .xls files use a distinct compound-file signature. In both cases signature recovery usually loses the original filename, so plan on identifying the workbook by its contents in the preview.