3 Ways to Recover an Unsaved or Lost Excel File on a Mac

Overview of Recovering Unsaved Excel Files on a Mac

This page offers 3 reliable methods to help you recover unsaved Excel file on Mac. If you have accidentally lost an unsaved Excel file or deleted it from your Mac, stay calm and choose any method to retrieve your lost Excel file immediately:

Please provide the English content you want to translate, and I'll translate it into Chinese for you promptly.

In general, an Excel file may get lost due to program crashes, unexpected Mac shutdowns, accidental deletion, hard drive formatting, or virus attacks. If your Excel files were not saved, you can largely restore them with the 2 solutions in Part 1. However, if you permanently delete Excel files by mistake, or your saved documents disappear due to other reasons, you will need a professional free data recovery software for Mac – the Data Recovery for Mac tool recommended in Part 2 to retrieve them. Read on for details.

How to Recover an Unsaved Excel File on a Mac

Has this ever happened to you: Excel freezing and becoming unresponsive on your Mac, forcing you to quit the program and, inevitably, losing the file you spent hours editing but hadn't saved? Or perhaps your Mac unexpectedly shut down. Regardless of the cause, you can recover unsaved Excel files on your Mac.

We also have a video on how to recover an unsaved Excel file on a Mac; check it out!

• 00:16 - Why is an Excel file not saving on Mac?
• 00:38 - Method 1: Recover from the TMP folder
• 01:06 - Method 2: Restore from Auto-Save
• 02:05 - Method 3: Use Recovery Software

Method 1: Recover an Unsaved Excel File from the Temporary Folder

Follow these steps to recover an unsaved Excel file from the Temporary/Temp folder:

1. Go to Applications > Utilities > Terminal.

2. Type **open $TMPDIR** and press "Enter" to open the "Temporary Files" folder. Select the "TemporaryItems" folder.

3. Under “Temporary Items,” find your unsaved Excel file and recover it.

Method 2: Recover a Lost or Unsaved Excel File from AutoSave on a Mac

Excel has some useful features, such as AutoSave and AutoRecover, that help protect your files in case of an accident (such as if Excel or your Mac stops working or shuts down).

• AutoSave: This automatically saves any new Excel documents that haven't been saved yet.
• AutoRecover: It helps users recover unsaved Excel files on a Mac.

If you had these options enabled, you might be able to recover unsaved Excel files in Excel 2016 – 2010 for Mac. Since the AutoRecover files are hidden, you need to make them visible to restore unsaved Excel files.

1. Go to Applications > Utilities > Terminal.

2. Type defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE in Terminal, and press “Enter” to make all items visible.

3. Click on “Finder” and press “Return” on your Mac.

4. Type in /Users/username/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Excel/Data/Library/Preferences/AutoRecovery, then click "Go" to open the AutoRecovery folder for Excel.

5. Locate the unsaved spreadsheet and recover it to another secure spot on your Mac.

Method 3: Recover a Lost or Unsaved Excel File Using a Tool

Note: You can create a backup by first clicking Disk Backup on the left. This allows you to recover data in case of disk failure, or if unsaved documents on the disk are accidentally deleted or lost.

Step 1: Select the Disk

Launch Disk Drill for Mac. Hover the mouse over the device with the unsaved files and click “Search for lost files.”

Step 2: Choose the unsaved document

After the scan is complete, click on “Category” and then expand “Unsaved Documents”. Click on the specific file type that you have lost – Unsaved Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Keynote, Pages or Numbers.

Step 3: Preview and recover the unsaved files

Double-click to preview the unsaved file, choose the correct version, and then click “Recover” to save the file to another secure location on your Mac.

How to Recover Deleted/Lost Excel Files on Mac in 3 Steps

The above two methods might help you recover unsaved Excel files. But what if you lost your Excel file due to accidental deletion, hard drive formatting, system crash, or storage device damage? Don't worry. In that case, you can use a free file recovery software for Mac. As a leading data recovery tool, it can fix the issue of Excel not opening on Mac and recover Office documents, emails, photos, and other data.

Install it, and follow the simple 3-step process outlined below to recover deleted or lost Excel files on your Mac.

Note: You can create a backup first by clicking “Disk Backup” on the left. The software will recover your documents from the backup image. This can prevent further damage to your disk and data, making the operation safer and more reliable.

Step 1: Scan the Lost Document

Select the location where your important Word/Excel/PPT/Numbers/Pages document was lost, and then click “Search Lost Files”.

Step 2. Look for Lost Files on Mac

The program "Mac Data Recovery Wizard" will immediately scan the disk volume you've chosen. The scan results will be displayed in the left panel. Select "Documents" to quickly filter out the lost DOC/PDF/PPT/XLS files.

Step 3: Recover Lost or Deleted Documents

A double click will allow you to preview the files found. Then, click “Recover” to restore all lost files at once.

And that's it! You have now recovered your lost Excel file and can continue working with the file. You can also use this free data recovery software for Mac to recover deleted photos, music, videos, or other files on your Mac.

Common Issues with Recovering Unsaved Excel Files on Mac

Read the question and answer below to gain a better understanding of how to recover an unsaved Excel file on a Mac.

1. Where does Excel automatically save files on a Mac?

For Microsoft users, there's an AutoRecovery folder. You can find your Excel file by following these steps if you forgot to save or deleted it:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles true

2. How to Recover Deleted Excel Files on Mac?

The easiest way to recover deleted Excel files on Mac is by using free data recovery software for Mac:

• Download and run the Mac Data Recovery software
• Launch the software, select the drive, and click "Search for Lost Files"
• After scanning, choose the Excel file(s)
• Preview the Excel file and recover the data

3. How to recover unsaved Excel file after clicking “Don't Save” on Mac?

Three Ways to Recover an Unsaved Excel File

• Launch the Excel Recovery software.
• Check your AutoRecover folder.
• Check your backup folder.

How to recover an Excel file that has been overwritten?

Please follow the steps below to recover an overwritten Excel file:

1. Open Excel, and click on "File" > "Info" > "Manage Workbooks." 2. From the dropdown menu, select "Recover Unsaved Workbooks." 3. Choose the unsaved file you wish to recover and click the "Open" button. 4. Then, at the top of the file tab, select "Save As" to restore the file.

Bottom line

This article offers you 3 ways to recover unsaved Excel on macOS Ventura, Monterey, Big Sur, and more. Hopefully, these solutions work for you. Besides, Mac data recovery software performs well in retrieving data from hard drives, SD cards, SSDs, and more. Try using this tool to recover deleted files from Mac Trash.