Working with a damaged file is not an easy thing because you have to face many difficulties during this whole procedure. If you don’t know the procedure for repairing Excel file, definitely you will suffer a lot. A message will appear every time you open a corrupted Excel file “the file is corrupt and cannot be opened”.
Sometimes, you may lose the data of that corrupted file because you don’t have a healthy backup. Sooner or later, you have to face this issue but don’t worry every problem comes with many solutions.
Before getting to know about repairing Excel files, let’s find out the main reasons behind a corrupted file.
How does an Excel File Corrupt?
Many reasons exist that can damage an Excel file. Sometimes, just one reason is there or you may find more than one culprit behind this issue. Below are some common reasons that arise this problem:
- Virus or malware
- Mishandling of files
- Corrupt or damaged storage
- Problems with the app or OS
- Logical errors with the file
- Sudden power outage or system shutdown
Useful Hacks to Repair Damaged and Corrupt Excel Files
We have come up with the best hacks that let you repair a damaged file.
Repairing Excel File with Built-in Repairing Feature
Fortunately, Microsoft Excel has a built-in feature for repairing a damaged file. This method helps only when your XLS or XLSX file is slightly damaged, you can simply repair it with Excel’s native feature. For this procedure, you simply need to launch the Excel application.
- Now, click on the Menu and choose the File option.
- Click on the Open feature. It opens up and selects the corrupted Excel file already saved on your system.
- Click on the drop-down menu instead of loading it in a regular way. Drop down menu is placed right beside the Open feature.
- Now, choose the “Open and Repair” feature and MS Excel will automatically repair the selected damaged file.
Repair Corrupt Excel File
Whenever you open a damaged file, Excel by default activates “File Recovery” mode to repair the file. On the other hand, when the recovery mode is not activated, you need to activate it. Excel has a built-in feature Open and Repair that manually repairs a file. To make this feature functional, you can follow the steps given below:
- Open a Blank Workbook and click on the File menu.
- Choose Open and then browse to select the corrupted file.
- Click on the arrow located right beside the Open tab. choose the Open and Repair option.
You can apply any of the following options:
- Click on the Repair tab to recover data as much as possible.
- Click on the Extract Data tab to recover values and formulas from the Excel file in case the repairing Excel file procedure fails.
Delete Unwanted Temporary Excel Data
Sometimes, Excel files may have temporary issues that can conflict with other files. And you can simply get rid of this problem by deleting all unwanted temporary files from the system. For this, you need to launch Windows Explorer.
- Now, open its Windows drive and navigate to Users.
- Click on AppData and then choose the Local option.
- From this, click on Microsoft Office.
- Here, you may search for files with the “tmp” extension to remove them from the system. Later on, you can re-launch Excel and try loading damaged files.
Remove Unnecessary Add-ins from MS Excel
Here’s another great hack to deal with how to recover corrupted Excel files query. If your MS Excel has some unwanted add ins, it might be possible that you will face unwanted issues. You can fix Excel file repair that happens because of any issue related to the app easily.
- For this, you need to install MS Excel and open Menu.
- From the menu, click on the File tab and then click on the Options.
- For Excel Options, open the Add-ins section that appears on the sidebar.
Now, you can choose add-ins that are no longer needed and click on the Actions feature given at the bottom panel. You can even uninstall any add-in from Excel by simply opening the Manage Add-ins option.
How to Recover Excel File Corrupted from the Backup Copy
Once the automatic backup feature is enabled, you can recover Excel corrupted file from the backup data only if the file is deleted by mistake or it is corrupted. Let’s follow a few easy steps:
- Open the file you need to save a backup copy.
- Click on the File tab and choose the Save As option.
- Select the Computer option and choose Browse.
- From the Save As dialog box, choose the drop-down menu appears next to the Tools button and click on the General Options.
- Check the Always Create backup option and click OK.
Once the automatic backup option is enabled, you will see an Excel backup file with an .xlk extension. Your backup file will be saved to its original location.
Wrap Up
Now, you are familiar with the complete procedure of repairing Excel file that is damaged. The above-mentioned methods are highly effective because you don’t need to use a third-party tool for the solution. Apart from that, you can even explore more options to work with Microsoft Excel. Keep your issues away and continue exploring Excel.
