To restore your new file without any saved updates, open Microsoft Excel first. Then, click Open on the File tab on the Ribbon. At the bottom of the page, after selecting Recent, click Recover Unsaved Workbooks. You’ll then be able to select any unsaved file in the Open window. That is all it takes to recover a new Excel file that was not saved.

As a general rule, Excel frequently saves your work automatically in the background, and allows you to recover the latest version of your work if Excel should close, even if you've never had a chance to save the file even once. 1. Start Excel and then, in the pane on the left, click Open. 2. At the bottom right, click Recover Unsaved Workbooks.

Open Microsoft Excel and go to Open > Recent. Click on Recover Unsaved Workbooks under the Workbooks section. Excel will display the list of the unsaved files (overwritten and never saved). Double-click on the file to be recovered.