You close Excel and answer "Don't Save" when you really needed to save. There are two potential ways to get the file back.
Thanks to Office MVP Beth Melton for rounding out my knowledge of this trick.
Workbooks that never had a name
You have a new workbook. You make changes. The workbook gets through an AutoSave
You close without saving.
When you open Excel, scroll all the way down to find Recover Unsaved Workbooks
Workbooks that did have a name
You open a workbook. You make changes. The workbook gets through an AutoSave
You close without saving.
Normally, Excel keeps last five autosave versions (one every 10 minutes, provided there has been a change)
When you close without saving, all are lost, except the last version.
Go to File, Info within first 10 minutes to get the last autosaved version
Thanks to Office MVP Beth Melton for rounding out my knowledge of this trick.
Workbooks that never had a name
You have a new workbook. You make changes. The workbook gets through an AutoSave
You close without saving.
When you open Excel, scroll all the way down to find Recover Unsaved Workbooks
Workbooks that did have a name
You open a workbook. You make changes. The workbook gets through an AutoSave
You close without saving.
Normally, Excel keeps last five autosave versions (one every 10 minutes, provided there has been a change)
When you close without saving, all are lost, except the last version.
Go to File, Info within first 10 minutes to get the last autosaved version
Transcript of the video:
Learn Excel from MrExcel podcast, episode 1988 - Recover Unsaved Workbooks!
Hey, welcome back to MrExcel netcast, I'm Bill Jelen.
Right now, in this particular case, this podcast, unfortunately, has to span more than 10 minutes, so right in here I'm just going to note, what time it is, CTRL+Shift+; so it's 1:08, I can't do this trick until 1:18!
But, let's talk about it.
There's two different ways that you can recover a workbook that you closed without saving.
I'm not going to make you wait the whole 10 minutes, I just simply need to make some changes to this data.
So here I have a blank workbook, notice, this workbook, or a blank worksheet, relatively blank worksheet, this workbook has previously been saved, all right?
And I'm going to create some data here.
Alright, there's our data.
Two different things that we have to deal with here.
Workbooks that had a name, and workbooks that never had a name.
So I just press CTRL+N to get a brand new book2.
In this book2, let's create some data, in book2.
Alright, and it's 1:09 PM, I'm going to pause recording, I'll be back to you ten minutes from now.
Alright welcome back, ten minutes have gone by, 10 minutes is the auto save time by default.
If you're not sure we're going to File, Options, Save, so, 10 minutes- unless you've changed this to 20 or 5 five for whatever reason, mine still set at 10, so I know that I've gone through an autosave.
And I have two different files here, the file that didn't have a name, and a file that had previously been saved but I haven't saved it.
I can even see here, if I go into file, there it is, one autosaved version there.
And then here's that we want to do, I'm going to do File, Alt, F, X, to close Excel, alt, F, X, and it starts asking me "You want to save this?" You know I'm in a hurry, it's close to 5 o'clock, I'm trying to get out of here, I click "Don't Save", and it's that last one, when you click "Don't Save", and you'se like "Oh no, I needed that one." Alright, so here we come, back into Excel.
The things that we had been working on, are not here.
What you have to do is, you have to come over here to this scroll bar, on the right hand side, scroll down down down down down down down, all the way down, and there's nothing here!
You have to go to "Open Other Workbooks".
Again, scroll all the way down.
And finally, there, hidden, hidden, is an amazing feature.
This has been here since Excel 2010.
It has never been visible on my screen, I always have to go hunt for it.
This - is every workbook in the last 5 days, that you worked on for more than 10 minutes, did not name the file, did not save the file, and then you closed Excel, even when they said "Hey, want to save this?" You said no.
Alright, so here we are.
You just have to guess, right?
Looks like the one, 1:10 PM I wonder what one is, I lost some data there, clearly.
Click Open, alright, and there's the data that I created.
"This is a recovered file, it's temporarily stored on your computer." By all means click "Save As", because after 5 days, it will get lost.
Alright, so that's how it works, if you had a workbook that had never had a name.
But that's different.
What if you had a workbook that did have a name?
Right, this one.
And I went through, and I know that I did some stuff, but that stuff is gone.
Alright, well, think about it, every 10 minutes, Excel doesn't autosave, and they save the last five autosaves, provided you made some changes.
Right, so if you made some changes at one minute after 12, and then they do an autosave at 10 minutes after 12, and then you don't touch it again for 40 minutes, they don't do an autosave every 10 minutes, it's only, if you made a change.
And when you close the workbook, they delete those five autosaves, but they save the last one.
And you have until the next autosave, so, in other words, essentially 10 minutes, and for me now, about 8.5 minutes, where you can go into File, Manage Workbook, and get the autosave from the previous Excel session!
This one that I closed without saving.
Ah!
There's the data.
It's a recovered unsaved file, again, make sure to click Restore, otherwise, it'll be gone!
These are two absolutely amazing tricks, and I have to send a shout out to Office MVP Beth Melton, Beth pre-ordered this book, and I was ready to go to print, I sent it out, Beth saw my tip, and she's like "Wait, you're only telling half the story!" You're telling about the workbooks that never had a name, where you can find the Recover Unsaved Workbooks.
There's a whole other set of steps for workbooks that did have a name.
So thanks to Beth for that tip.
You know, I have to talk about something else, I travel a lot, I go out and do these power Excel seminars, I'm in hotels all the time, you go down to the the lobby of the hotel, with your USB Drive, you stick the USB drive in there, you open your Excel file, you click print, you do File, Close, you want to Save Changes, No!
If that happened to be open for more than 10 minutes, watch out, they saved the changes, for the next five days, anyone who comes along on that computer can go into File, Recover Unsaved Workbooks, or, just go to Recent Files, and there's a potential that they can get your data!
Be really careful in the hotel business center.
Well hey, I'd like you to buy this book, click that "i" on the top right hand corner.
Today's tip, plus 40 other tips, Excel jokes, ****tail sweets, it's a fun book.
Again, thanks to Beth, for the tips on this, and thanks to you for stopping by.
We'll see you next time for another netcast from MrExcel!
Hey, welcome back to MrExcel netcast, I'm Bill Jelen.
Right now, in this particular case, this podcast, unfortunately, has to span more than 10 minutes, so right in here I'm just going to note, what time it is, CTRL+Shift+; so it's 1:08, I can't do this trick until 1:18!
But, let's talk about it.
There's two different ways that you can recover a workbook that you closed without saving.
I'm not going to make you wait the whole 10 minutes, I just simply need to make some changes to this data.
So here I have a blank workbook, notice, this workbook, or a blank worksheet, relatively blank worksheet, this workbook has previously been saved, all right?
And I'm going to create some data here.
Alright, there's our data.
Two different things that we have to deal with here.
Workbooks that had a name, and workbooks that never had a name.
So I just press CTRL+N to get a brand new book2.
In this book2, let's create some data, in book2.
Alright, and it's 1:09 PM, I'm going to pause recording, I'll be back to you ten minutes from now.
Alright welcome back, ten minutes have gone by, 10 minutes is the auto save time by default.
If you're not sure we're going to File, Options, Save, so, 10 minutes- unless you've changed this to 20 or 5 five for whatever reason, mine still set at 10, so I know that I've gone through an autosave.
And I have two different files here, the file that didn't have a name, and a file that had previously been saved but I haven't saved it.
I can even see here, if I go into file, there it is, one autosaved version there.
And then here's that we want to do, I'm going to do File, Alt, F, X, to close Excel, alt, F, X, and it starts asking me "You want to save this?" You know I'm in a hurry, it's close to 5 o'clock, I'm trying to get out of here, I click "Don't Save", and it's that last one, when you click "Don't Save", and you'se like "Oh no, I needed that one." Alright, so here we come, back into Excel.
The things that we had been working on, are not here.
What you have to do is, you have to come over here to this scroll bar, on the right hand side, scroll down down down down down down down, all the way down, and there's nothing here!
You have to go to "Open Other Workbooks".
Again, scroll all the way down.
And finally, there, hidden, hidden, is an amazing feature.
This has been here since Excel 2010.
It has never been visible on my screen, I always have to go hunt for it.
This - is every workbook in the last 5 days, that you worked on for more than 10 minutes, did not name the file, did not save the file, and then you closed Excel, even when they said "Hey, want to save this?" You said no.
Alright, so here we are.
You just have to guess, right?
Looks like the one, 1:10 PM I wonder what one is, I lost some data there, clearly.
Click Open, alright, and there's the data that I created.
"This is a recovered file, it's temporarily stored on your computer." By all means click "Save As", because after 5 days, it will get lost.
Alright, so that's how it works, if you had a workbook that had never had a name.
But that's different.
What if you had a workbook that did have a name?
Right, this one.
And I went through, and I know that I did some stuff, but that stuff is gone.
Alright, well, think about it, every 10 minutes, Excel doesn't autosave, and they save the last five autosaves, provided you made some changes.
Right, so if you made some changes at one minute after 12, and then they do an autosave at 10 minutes after 12, and then you don't touch it again for 40 minutes, they don't do an autosave every 10 minutes, it's only, if you made a change.
And when you close the workbook, they delete those five autosaves, but they save the last one.
And you have until the next autosave, so, in other words, essentially 10 minutes, and for me now, about 8.5 minutes, where you can go into File, Manage Workbook, and get the autosave from the previous Excel session!
This one that I closed without saving.
Ah!
There's the data.
It's a recovered unsaved file, again, make sure to click Restore, otherwise, it'll be gone!
These are two absolutely amazing tricks, and I have to send a shout out to Office MVP Beth Melton, Beth pre-ordered this book, and I was ready to go to print, I sent it out, Beth saw my tip, and she's like "Wait, you're only telling half the story!" You're telling about the workbooks that never had a name, where you can find the Recover Unsaved Workbooks.
There's a whole other set of steps for workbooks that did have a name.
So thanks to Beth for that tip.
You know, I have to talk about something else, I travel a lot, I go out and do these power Excel seminars, I'm in hotels all the time, you go down to the the lobby of the hotel, with your USB Drive, you stick the USB drive in there, you open your Excel file, you click print, you do File, Close, you want to Save Changes, No!
If that happened to be open for more than 10 minutes, watch out, they saved the changes, for the next five days, anyone who comes along on that computer can go into File, Recover Unsaved Workbooks, or, just go to Recent Files, and there's a potential that they can get your data!
Be really careful in the hotel business center.
Well hey, I'd like you to buy this book, click that "i" on the top right hand corner.
Today's tip, plus 40 other tips, Excel jokes, ****tail sweets, it's a fun book.
Again, thanks to Beth, for the tips on this, and thanks to you for stopping by.
We'll see you next time for another netcast from MrExcel!
