Excel file has disappeared

[996Type]

Well this is unusual.

I’ve completed a couple of Excel projects (6 columns from some raw data) and stored them on my home machine, it was quite a big manual task. Finished in April.

Revisited and did a smaller version of the same task a few weeks later.

Going back in to the home PC today, the second file is still there but the first has completely gone.

Version history shows neither file to exist and last excel activity is actually Jan 19th. “Previously opened” has no record of either file….

I believe Microsoft users did have trouble with files / excel dating back to Jan 19th this year regards files disappearing.

I’ve tried all the recovery / version control options but was afraid I was going mad when I couldn’t see any trace of the first file. I stored it quite visibly but it’s just vanished.

No version history, nothing in recycling, I don’t think I could have eliminated it from history more effectively if I’d actively tried to do so!!

Any thoughts on what I might have missed?

There are a couple of accounts on the PC and I’ve checked the excel app from within each - nothing.

It’s the like the file just never existed and I’ve questioned my sanity here!

Any thoughts?

[595Heaven]

Strange!

Did you save to a flash drive / cloud service? Doesn’t explain why it doesn’t show up in Excel files though.

Do you have the web version of Excel and the app? Check them both.

You could also search the entire PC for all Excel files using *.xl*

[CoolHands]

Or try datemodified:this year in the windows folder search box

[Scarletpimpofnel]

A few suggestions:

1 - Are you using Windows Explorer to find the file or Excel itself? You MIGHT have saved the file as a .csv file rather than a .xls so it might not show up if searching for .xls or from within Excel itself. Try searching for .csv files instead

2 - You can get data recovery tools that scan your HDD for deleted files, they then give you a list of files found and you can recover them (assuming not written over etc). I've used these in the past with limited success and they cost a few quid too. The free one find the files .... then want £ to recover.

3 - Back in the day (no idea if it is still possible) I used to boot a computer into DOS mode and run DIR etc commands that occasionally found files not for some reason visible in the Windows of the day.

[Fore Left]

996Type said:

I’ve tried all the recovery / version control options but was afraid I was going mad when I couldn’t see any trace of the first file. I stored it quite visibly but it’s just vanished.

Did that include Recover Unsaved Workbooks in Excel itself? There might be a version in there. They're saved as binary files so might not show up in a search

Directory should be C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Excel

[camel_landy]

If you're using 'Cloud' services, it could be related to the current outage.

M

[996Type]

Thanks for all the advice, the file has just gone!

I’ve started to rebuild it from the source data.

Does anyone know of a free app that lift text from images?

I’m using my iPhone to photograph an old paper spreadsheet, lifting the data as a mail draft and pasting into excel. It’s for some house history (the original file).

Takes me 15 mins per sheet to tidy it up, around 20 sheets, which I’ve already done once so I’m pretty speedy at it now!

[Mr Pointy]

If possible don't save it as a jpg, save it as a pdf (if your phone doesn't offer this then there are plenty of apps that will do it) & then import the data into Excel:

https://www.howtogeek.com/770474/how-to-import-dat...
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=import+pdf+ta...

You might be able to work with the jpg by translating it to pdf first:
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=import+jpg+table+into+ex...

[TonyRPH]

996Type said:

Thanks for all the advice, the file has just gone!

Try installing agent ransack and then search for *.xls? (include the question mark - that's a wildcard search character)

996Type said:

I’ve started to rebuild it from the source data.

Does anyone know of a free app that lift text from images?

<snip>

There's an app called 'Adobe Scan' on Android - this will create PDF files and it also does OCR at the same time - so you should be able to copy the text.

I just tested this by scanning a book cover with an image and I was able to copy the text.