Repair Excel File Online
Find out why an Excel file won't open, and recover its readable cell values into a fresh .xlsx when browser-only recovery is possible. Free, with nothing uploaded.
- Runs in your browser
- Free
- No sign-up
Drop your file here or choose a fileTap to choose a file
Opened on your device - never uploaded · up to 50MB
Supports .xlsx, .xlsm · or paste a file from your clipboard
Diagnoses and recovers; it does not crack passwords. More
This tool diagnoses Office Open XML workbook packages and can export readable sheet values. It does not bypass encryption, recover lost passwords, or send files to a server.
Repair an Excel File Online
When Excel reports that a workbook is corrupt or unreadable, this tool runs a browser-only diagnostic on the file's XLSX structure and exports the readable sheet values into a clean new workbook. You can repair an Excel file online for free with no upload - everything stays on your device. Only .xlsx and .xlsm files can be inspected; those are the formats built as ZIP packages of XML parts.
Reading the Report
Every line in the report is one finding, and the severity is the part worth reading:
- ERROR - a required part is missing, or no worksheet XML was found. Something is physically absent from the archive.
- WARNING - the package opened, but the workbook model could not be parsed. The structure is intact and the content is not.
- OK - all checks passed and the workbook parses.
Underneath, Worksheet parts lists the raw xl/worksheets/sheetN.xml entries found in the archive. Counting them against the number of tabs you remember is the quickest measure of how much of the workbook survived.
Reading the Four Statuses
| Status | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Healthy | Every required part is present and the workbook parsed | The damage is not structural. Suspect the file it links to, an add-in, or Excel's cache |
| Repairable | The package opened, but the parser could not build the workbook | Structure survived, content did not. Try Open and Repair in Excel |
| Limited | A required part or all worksheet parts are missing | Export whatever values still read, then rebuild from a backup |
| Unsupported | Not a readable ZIP, or not an .xlsx/.xlsm at all | Check the real file type, or the extension, before anything else |
What Browser-Only Repair Can and Cannot Do
Honesty matters here: a privacy-first, browser-only repair tool cannot fix every kind of corruption. It works best when the XLSX ZIP package is still readable and the underlying cell values can be extracted.
- Can - inspect structure, list readable sheets, and export recoverable cell values to a fresh .xlsx.
- Cannot - recover encrypted (password-to-open) files, rebuild a part that is missing from the archive, or restore formatting, charts, pivot tables and macros.
- Does not - patch the damaged file in place. The download is always a new workbook built from values alone.
What Recovery Keeps and What It Drops
Recovery reads every sheet the parser can see and writes the cell values into a brand new workbook. Sheet names and their order are kept (trimmed to Excel's 31-character limit). Everything that is not a value is not carried across:
- Formulas become static values - the last result Excel stored before the file broke.
- Dates arrive as the underlying serial number, because number formats are not copied. Re-apply a date format in Excel, or use the date converter.
- Formatting, merged cells and column widths are gone; the output is a plain grid.
- Charts, images, pivot tables, conditional formatting, data validation and comments are not written.
- Macros are lost - a repaired .xlsm comes back as .xlsx.
How Workbooks Get Corrupted
The usual causes are mundane and worth knowing, because they tell you where an intact copy might still exist: a save interrupted over a network share or VPN, two sync clients writing the same file, a download that finished short, a mail gateway rewriting the attachment, or a crash while Excel was mid-write. In every one of those cases the previous good version usually survives somewhere - OneDrive or SharePoint version history, the network share's snapshots, or the sender's Sent folder. Check there before spending time on repair.
If This Page Cannot Recover It
Work in this order. Copy the damaged file first and leave the original alone. In Excel, use File → Open → Browse, select the file, then choose Open and Repair from the dropdown next to the Open button; if a full repair fails, run it again and choose Extract Data. If Excel refuses too, rename a copy to .zip and look inside: the presence of xl/worksheets/ tells you the data is physically there, even when no reader will open it.
Which Repair Page to Use
| Your symptom | Start here |
|---|---|
| Excel will not open the file at all | This page - run the diagnostic, then the Open and Repair steps above if it cannot recover the values |
| "We found a problem with some content", or you want to see the package parts | XLSX Repair - what each OOXML part holds and what its absence means |
| The file is unsaved, deleted, or was overwritten | Excel Recovery - what a browser can and cannot get back |
| You just want the data out of a file that still parses | This page, then Excel Editor or Excel Viewer to check it |
All three run the same diagnostic engine, so the report is identical; the difference is which failure each page explains. Always work from a copy: run the diagnostic, read the status and the readable sheet list, export the recovered values, and compare that result against a backup before it replaces the damaged original.
How This Compares to Paid Excel Repair Tools
Most Excel repair services follow one of two patterns: a desktop program that charges per file (often around $10-40 for a single recovery), or an online service that uploads your file, shows a blurred or partial preview, and asks for payment before releasing the recovered data. Enterprise tools also cap their free tier at roughly 2 MB or gate downloads behind a sign-in.
- Free, in full - recoverable values download without payment, watermark, or preview paywall.
- No upload - the file is inspected in your browser; nothing is sent to a server, so confidential workbooks stay private.
- No size gate or signup - process any file your browser can open, as many times as you need.
The trade-off is honest scope: paid desktop tools may reconstruct deeper structural damage than a browser can. For the common case - a workbook that Excel won't open but whose data is still intact inside - this recovers it for free, in seconds.
Frequently Asked Questions
Three things, in order: whether the file opens as a ZIP archive at all, whether the parts a workbook cannot live without are present ([Content_Types].xml, xl/workbook.xml and xl/_rels/workbook.xml.rels, plus at least one xl/worksheets/sheetN.xml), and whether the SheetJS parser can build a workbook model from it. Each answer becomes one line in the report, marked OK, WARNING or ERROR.
Repairable means the archive opened and every required part was found, but the parser could not read the workbook model - so the container is healthy and something inside one of the XML parts is not. The label describes the file's state, not a promise that this page can fix it. When the parse fails, the values export is unavailable and Excel's own Open and Repair is the next thing to try.
It is proof the package is well-formed and parses. It says nothing about broken links to other workbooks, a corrupted add-in, a stale Excel cache, or a sync client holding the file open - all of which produce Excel errors on a structurally perfect workbook. A healthy result is best read as: stop looking inside the file.
No. The diagnostic runs on one file at a time, because the report and the recovery decision are per file. Inspect one, export what it can give you, then use Inspect Another File.
No. The original is only read. A successful recovery writes a separate new workbook named yourfile-recovered.xlsx, and the damaged file is left exactly as it was so you can still try Excel's Open and Repair or a desktop recovery tool on it.
Often not. That message also appears when the extension does not match the contents - a CSV, HTML export, or web download saved as .xlsx. Drop the file in above: if the diagnostic reports that the package could not be opened as a ZIP at all, open the file in a text editor. If the first characters are readable text or angle brackets, it is a CSV or HTML file with the wrong name, and renaming it fixes it without any repair.
The export only runs when the workbook model itself parsed and at least one xl/worksheets/sheetN.xml part was found. If the sheet XML is damaged past the point the parser can read, there is nothing to copy values out of, and the tool says so instead of handing you an empty workbook.
No. The diagnostic is built on the ZIP structure of .xlsx and .xlsm files. Legacy .xls and binary .xlsb use different container formats, and a file encrypted with an open password cannot be read at all without the password - it fails at the ZIP step and is reported as unsupported.