Excel — Show Changes and Restore
Who changed my spreadsheet? And how do I get it back?
Do you have a shared Excel spreadsheet that no longer appears as it should? How do you find out who changed it? Let’s look at the Change window and then Version history to recover your file.
Note “Show Changes” will be grayed out if your Excel file has never been shared.
On the Review Tab click on “Show Changes”. The “Changes” window opens on the right side of your spreadsheet.
This window will show you a list of all edited cells by user in chronological order for the last 60 days. You can also narrow down your search by selecting a range or a single sheet in the workbook with the filter icon at the top left of the “Changes” window.
If you want to see what has changed — you need to look at Version History. On a shared Excel file go to very top left where you see your file name. To the right of the filename, you should see “Last Modified” date and dropdown error.
Note “Last Modified” will not appear if your file has never been shared.
When you click on the drop-down arrow this window opens. From this menu click on “Version History” button.
Version History button opens the change list. Click on a particular version in the list all it will highlight the edited cells on the spreadsheet.
Find the version in the list that you would like to revert to. Click on it and at top left you will see the version number and a “restore” button. Click on “Restore”. This will automatically bring your file back to the version you want.
