Excel (Wiki) Recovery consists of the software for recovering lost, deleted and unsaved excel files due to accidental deletion, disk formatted, operating system crashes, etc. It can also recover excel files from damaged or inaccessible disks/partitions.
If you're looking for the all-in-one Office Recovery Software, please browse our Office Recovery.
Generally, Excel Recovery Software can only recover deleted/lost excel files. If you want to repair damaged excel files, please browse our Excel Repair.

Contents

1 Free vs. Paid
2 Recovery from Temporary Files
3 Tips on Excel Recovery
3 Editor's remarks
4 Freeware
5 Shareware

Free vs. Paid

FREE	PAID
Not any specific Excel Recovery Freeware, but some comprehensive recovery freeware support excel recovery Most only support XLS files Limited functions, only suitable for recovering accidentally deleted files	Full support for both XLS files and XLSX files, some even able to recover ODS files Compatible with the latest operating system Powerful data recovery functions, capable of recovering lost files due to various reasons A higher data recovery speed and success rate Convenient to use, detailed tutorials available Good technical support
Referring to this table, you can choose between Freeware and Shareware based on your demands. We've listed the most popular data recovery freeware which is able to recover excel files. To recover lost excel files due to the simple human errors like accidental deletion of files, you can first try freeware.

Tips on Excel Recovery from Temporary Files

According to Microsoft, users may be able to recover lost excel files from temporary files. But if you are not an IT expert, we recommend you use Excel recovery software directly, for any misoperations may lead to unrecoverable data loss.

Here are the simplest solutions to recover excel files from temporary files. Wish you a good luck and successful recovery.

Step 1: Show hidden files (How-tos)
Step 2: Find out temporary files

Temporary files may locate in one of these folders
Windows XP:
"C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\Local Settings\Temp"
"C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\Application Data\Microsoft\Excel"
Windows 7 and above
"C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Temp"
"C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Excel"
• An excel temp file is saved as “xxx.tmp” or “~dfxxxx.tmp” ("xxxx" is a number).
• An AutoRecovery file will look like xxx.xlb

Step 3: Open temporary files
Copy these temporary files to a new directory in another drive, and open them one by one in Excel.

NOTE:
1. There is no guarantee that the temp file is a good copy of the unsaved excel file.
2. If the temp file can not be opened, then the file cannot be recovered in this way.
3. The location of autosave files depends on the settings of your MS Excel. You can view and set the location in "File Tab - Options - Save - AutoRecover File location"

Tips on Excel Recovery

To avoid any writing process on the drive where you lost the excel files and keep the lost/deleted files recoverable, make sure installing excel recovery software and recovering files into another drive. If there is only one drive, please prepare an external hard drive to install software and store recovered files.
As for the different data loss cases, you may try different software to select a suitable one before you make a final decision.

Our editors have done the following work to save your time:

List all the popular Excel Recovery Software (including the best freeware)
Re-rank the products by brands reputation, product downloads, and product sales.
List all the valid discount coupons/deals, so that you can enjoy discounts directly instead of time-consuming searching for a coupon.