If you’re struggling with a corrupt Excel file that won’t open, we have outlined 4 ways to repair your damaged Excel workbooks. An Excel spreadsheet is damaged when you are not able to open the Excel workbook or data is missing or scattered. The good news is you can restore your damaged Excel spreadsheet; if not all, at least you’ll be able to retrieve most of your data by following the methods mentioned below. Common causes of Excel file corruption include sudden electricity failure, hardware crashes, malware infections, software glitches, and Excel limitations. In most of these cases, corruption occurs without any warning, which leads to the inaccessibility of your important Excel workbooks. Now what’ll you do in this situation? Look no further; in this blog we will share 4 ways to repair a corrupted Excel file, both manual and paid.
Method 1: Use Built-in Repair Tools
To make it easier for professionals. Microsoft Excel comes with a built-in repair tool to fix all kinds of minor issues. If your XLSX, or XLS files are not severely damaged, you can simply repair them with Excel’s Open and Repair function. Just follow the simple steps mentioned below, and you’ll restore the damaged Excel spreadsheet.
Step 1: Open the Microsoft Excel app or create a new Excel file to open it.
Step 2: Click the File tab and click Open.
Step 3: From the drop-down menu, select Open and Repair.
Step 4: If you are doing this for the first time, then click Repair in the dialog box.
This process will take some time depending on the size of the file and the data it contains. Once the process is finished, your file will be opened automatically.
If this doesn’t repair and open your file, then you have to use the Excel File Repair Tool to fix corrupted Excel documents.
Method 2: Third Party Tools
In case your Excel workbook is heavily corrupted, you have to use third-party Excel File Repair Tools. One such trusted data repair tool is Stellar Excel Repair Tool. This tool restores all Microsoft Excel’s objects without any discrepancy. This Excel file repair method can be used by individuals as well as organizations. To fix corrupt Excel sheets, you need to do the following steps:
Step 1: Purchase and download the Stellar Excel Repair Tool.
Step 2: Find the Excel files that you want to repair, then click Repair.
Step 3: After the repair is done. Preview the file, and click Save File.
Step 4: The repaired Excel file will be saved and ready to work on.
However, if you do not wish to use third-party services, you can use the below-mentioned methods to restore damaged Excel spreadsheets.
Method 3: Change Calculation Settings
When you’re unable to access the damaged Excel spreadsheet because it isn’t open, try opening it with automatic calculations turned off. Here’s how you can change the calculation settings in Excel to access your corrupted file.
Step 1: Open a new workbook in Excel, then click on File and select Options.
Step 2: In the dialog box, click on the Formulas tab.
Step 3: Under Workbook Calculation, click on Manual to disable automatic calculation.
Step 4: Click OK to apply the changes and close the dialog box.
After doing this, you can refresh your device and try to open your corrupted Excel file. Don’t forget to change calculation settings back to ensure Excel will continue to automatically calculate the formulas and functions in your other spreadsheets. If your file is still not opening, you can use the below-mentioned method to recover it.
Method 4: Restore Corrupted Excel File from TMP File
Microsoft Office provides an AutoSave feature to automatically save your Excel Temp files as a backup. You can follow the steps below to recover the corrupted files.
Step 1: Open the temp file folder location and find the Excel TMP files with extensions.
Step 2: Locate the Excel temporary files starting with $ or ~ and ending with TMP.
Step 3: Copy the files and save to some other safe location.
Step 4: Change the file extension from .TMP to.XLS/XLSX.
Congratulations! Your corrupted Excel file should be repaired by now.
Despite this, it is always recommended to create a valid backup of your large data sets, as well as equip your PC with a good antivirus to protect from malware infection.
If you are unable to open an Excel file due to an invalid extension, click here.