Excel Repair
Diagnose damaged Excel workbooks and export readable sheet values into a fresh XLSX file when browser-only recovery is possible.
Browser-only limit
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.
Drop your file here or click to upload
Supports .xlsx, .xlsm · up to 50MB · or paste a file from your clipboard
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.
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.
Which of the Four Repair Pages to Use
| Your symptom | Start here |
|---|---|
| Excel will not open the file at all | Corrupt Excel Repair - triage, causes, and Open and Repair steps |
| "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 four 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.