You delete a sheet in Excel, and then, oops! You realize you shouldn’t have deleted it.
How do you recover it?
Excel does not have an ‘Undo (CTRL + Z)’ option to recover a deleted sheet. However, I will show you some methods to recover a deleted sheet in Excel.
How to Recover a Deleted Sheet Before Saving Changes
If you delete a sheet from a workbook but haven’t saved the changes yet, the original file on disk is not overwritten.
The deleted sheet is only removed from the copy of the file in your computer’s memory but intact in the original file on disk.
You can use the methods below to recover the deleted sheet.
Method #1.1: Close Workbook Without Saving Changes
Suppose you have a workbook named ‘Employee Data.xlsx’ with Sheet1, Sheet2, and Sheet3. You unintentionally delete Sheet3. How do you recover it?
If you have not saved the workbook after deleting the sheet, close the workbook and click ‘Don’t Save’ when prompted to save changes to the file.
When you reopen the workbook, the sheet will be there, but any unsaved data in the recovered sheet and other sheets will be lost.
Method #1.2: Save the Workbook to a Different Filename, Move to it the Recovered Sheet from the Original Workbook
Imagine you’re working on a workbook named ‘Employee Data.xlsx’ containing Sheet1, Sheet2, and Sheet3.
You make important updates to the data in Sheet1 and Sheet2 but accidentally delete Sheet3 before saving your changes.
How can you recover the deleted sheet without losing the updates you made to Sheet1 and Sheet2?
You can use the steps below to recover the deleted sheet without losing data in the other sheets.
- Click the File button, Save As on the left sidebar of the Backstage view, Browse on the right, navigate to where you want to store the file, and save the workbook to a different filename, say, ‘Employee Information.xlsx.’
- Navigate to where the original ‘Employee Data.xlsx’ workbook is stored and re-open the workbook.
- Right-click Sheet3 in the ‘Employee Data.xlsx’ workbook and select ‘Move or Copy’ on the shortcut menu.
The above step opens the Move or Copy dialog box.
- Do the following on the Move or Copy dialog box:
- Open the ‘To book’ drop-down list and select the newly renamed ‘Employee Information.xlsx’ workbook.
- Select the ‘(move to end)’ option on the ‘Before sheet’ box and click OK.
The above step moves the recovered Sheet3 from the original ‘Employee Data.xlsx’ workbook and places it after Sheet2 in the renamed workbook ‘Employee Information.xlsx.’ You lose unsaved data in the recovered sheet but the updates you made to Sheet1 and Sheet2 are preserved.
You can delete the original ‘Employee Data.xlsx’ workbook and rename the ‘Employee Information.xlsx’ workbook to ‘Employee Data.xlsx.’
Method #1.3: Use the AutoRecover Feature
AutoRecover feature in Excel saves the entire workbook at specified intervals.
If you haven’t saved the workbook after deleting the sheet AutoRecover might still contain a version of the workbook with the sheet, as long as no subsequent automatic or manual saves have overwritten the AutoRecover file.
To check if you have such a version:
- Click the File button on the Ribbon.
- Click Info on the left sidebar of the Backstage view, open the Manage Workbook drop-down on the right, click the Recover Unsaved Workbook option, and look for and save a version of the file before the deletion.
The above step replaces the current workbook with the selected version, restoring the deleted sheet.
How to Recover a Deleted Sheet After Saving Changes
If you delete a sheet from a workbook and save the changes, the original file on disk is overwritten, and the deleted sheet is lost.
As a result, you cannot recover the sheet from the original workbook. However, you can use the methods below to restore the sheet from other sources.
Method #2.1: Restore the Deleted Sheet from Previous Versions of the Workbook
If you are using a system that supports file versioning like OneDrive or SharePoint, you can restore a deleted sheet using the steps below:
- Click the File button to open the Backstage view, click Info on the left sidebar, and the Version History button on the right.
The above step opens the most recent previous version of the workbook, displaying the Version History Task Pane on the right side of the Excel window.
The Task Pane shows a list of timestamped previous versions of the workbook.
- Look through the list, open the one from a time before the sheet was deleted, and check if it has the deleted sheet.
Note: The version will be in read-only mode.
- Copy the sheet’s contents to a new sheet in the current workbook.
Note: If you want to restore the entire workbook to this version, click Restore. This will replace the current workbook with the selected version, recovering the deleted sheet.
Method #2.2: Restore the Deleted Sheet from the Workbook Backup
Imagine you’re working on a workbook named ‘Employee Data.xlsx’ containing Sheet1, Sheet2, and Sheet3. You inadvertently deleted Sheet3 and saved the changes. How can you recover the deleted sheet?
You can restore the deleted sheet from a file backup using the steps below.
- Ensure the ‘Employee Data.xlsx’ workbook is open.
- Open the workbook backup.
- Right-click Sheet3 of the workbook backup and select ‘Move or Copy’ on the shortcut menu.
The above step opens the Move or Copy dialog box.
- Do the following on the Move or Copy dialog box:
- Open the ‘To book’ drop-down list and select ‘Employee Data.xlsx.’
- Select the ‘(move to end)’ option on the ‘Before sheet’ box.
- Select the ‘Create a copy’ checkbox and click OK.
- The above step moves a copy of Sheet3’ from the workbook backup and places it after Sheet2 in the workbook ‘Employee Data.xlsx.’ This step only moves a copy of Sheet3 to the target workbook retaining the original sheet in the backup file.
Note: Creating backups of your important workbooks is a best practice.
I have shown you ways to recover or restore a deleted sheet in Excel. I hope you found the tutorial helpful.
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