Repair your corrupted Excel file. Free. No paywall.
100 MB max. Unlimited files. No signup. We don't preview-then-paywall like the rest.
Built on enterprise-grade document recovery — the same class of engine trusted by Fortune 100 financial teams.
- 🔒 256-bit HTTPS
- ⏱ Auto-deleted within 7 days
- ✅ GDPR Compliant
- 👁 No Human Review
- 🤖 No AI Training on Your Data
Drop your corrupted .xlsx / .xlsm / .xls / .xlsb / .ods here
or click to browse — up to 100 MB per file, 5 files at once
Why Excel files corrupt — and why most repair tools won't actually fix yours for free
Excel files corrupt for ordinary reasons: OneDrive sync errors mid-save, unexpected shutdowns, network drives dropping, antivirus quarantining a chunk, ZIP container damage on email transfer. The frustrating part isn't that it happens — it's the recovery industry. Almost every "free" Excel repair tool runs the same dark pattern: scan, show a tantalising preview, then demand $39–$199 to actually save the file. We don't. Our engine runs three layers of automated recovery (Aspose-grade standard load, aggressive retry, manual OOXML XML rebuild) plus free human escalation when needed — at no cost, ever, with no preview-then-paywall trick.
What we recover
Cell values & numeric types
Every value, currency, percentage, date, and formatted number reconstructed in its native Excel type — not flattened to text.
Formulas including SUM / array / external links
Standard, array, shared, and cross-workbook formulas survive. Broken cells are reported, not silently dropped.
Merged cells & frozen panes
Layout-critical structures like merged headers, frozen rows, and grouped columns come back intact.
Charts, Pivot Tables & conditional formatting
Embedded charts, pivot caches, conditional formatting rules, and data validations are preserved when the source contains them.
Hidden sheets, named ranges & VBA macros
Hidden worksheets, defined names, and (when present) VBA modules are kept exactly as they were.
Multi-language workbooks
CJK, Cyrillic, RTL — Aspose's 26.3 engine treats Unicode content the same as ASCII; nothing is lost in encoding round-trips.
How it works
- 1Drop your corrupted .xlsx / .xlsm / .xls / .xlsb / .ods file (or paste the Excel error message you're seeing).
- 2Layer 1 — the engine loads the file in tolerant mode, reading past damaged regions instead of stopping at them. Most recoverable files are recovered here.
- 3Layer 2 — if the file is not what its extension says (a CSV saved as .xlsx, for example), it is imported for what it really is.
- 4Layer 3 — if the container itself is damaged, every surviving part is read straight from the file body, the workbook is rebuilt around it, and the engine verifies the result.
- 5Download the repaired file with a transparency report: what was recovered and what, if anything, was lost. If the file holds no data at all, you are told so right away, with what to try next.
Why this is the first truly free Excel repair tool
Genuinely free, no paywall trick
No "preview your data, pay to save" funnel. We don't show you a tantalising preview and then ask for $49 — the recovered file downloads directly, every time.
100 MB per file, unlimited files
Stellar Online caps free at 100 KB / 1 file per month. Aspose's own demo caps at 2 MB. We give you 100 MB and as many files as you need.
No signup, no email gate
Recovery Toolbox emails the link 5 minutes later. We give you an instant download — no email capture, no account creation.
Transparency report (industry first)
We show "X worksheets / Y formulas / Z charts recovered, N items dropped" — the paid tools just say "repaired" and let you find out the next morning that pivot tables vanished.
A straight answer when a file cannot be repaired
Many files that will not open hold no spreadsheet data at all: they are empty inside, encrypted, or not Excel files. Instead of a vague failure, we tell you exactly what the file is and what is still worth trying. Where a person could get further, manual recovery is free.
We don't need to upsell repair
We're not a recovery-software company. ExcelMaster.ai is an AI Excel agent product; this tool exists to introduce you to that. There's no sales pitch on the result page — only an optional "want AI to actually work in this file?" link if you're curious.
Frequently asked questions
Is it really free? What's the catch?
Genuinely free. No file-count limit, no paywall. The catch — if you want to call it that — is that we make our money from the optional ExcelMaster AI add-in, not from this repair tool. We hope you like the repair experience enough to try the add-in. If not, the repair is still yours.
What's the maximum file size?
100 MB per file, up to 5 files per batch. If you have a >100 MB file, contact [email protected] and we'll lift the cap on a case-by-case basis.
Is it safe to upload my financial / sensitive data?
Files are uploaded over TLS 1.3, processed in an isolated container, and deleted automatically within 7 days. Nobody looks at your file, we do not share it, and we do not train AI models on it.
What file formats do you support?
.xlsx, .xlsm, .xltx, .xltm, .xls (legacy BIFF), .xlsb (binary), and .ods. Output formats: xlsx, xlsm, xls, xlsb, ods.
What if the automated recovery fails?
You get a diagnosis instead of a dead end: whether the file is empty inside, encrypted, not an Excel file, or missing its data — and what to try next. If a person could plausibly recover more, you also get a Case ID and the [email protected] address to send the file to; that manual attempt is free.
Can you fix "Excel found unreadable content" / "file format is not valid" / "we found a problem"?
Yes — these are the most common error messages we see, and they're exactly what our 3-layer chain is designed for. Paste the error message into the form on the result card and we'll explain what caused it alongside the recovery.
Does it work for password-protected files?
Yes — provide the open password and we'll repair the workbook without removing the protection. We don't remove passwords (that's a separate Excel Unlock tool) and we never brute-force.
Does it work for VBA macros / .xlsm files?
Yes — .xlsm and .xltm are first-class supported. VBA modules are preserved when present in the source. (Excel's Trust Center may prompt you the first time you open a recovered macro file — that's standard, not a sign of recovery damage.)
How long does recovery take?
Most files repair in under 5 seconds. Files with thousands of pivot tables or complex chart caches can take up to 30 seconds. We'll show staged progress (Upload → Analyse → Recover) so you know what's happening.
Will all my conditional formatting / charts / pivot tables come back?
We aim for full preservation, and most do. If something can't be recovered (rare), it's listed in the transparency report on the result card — we never silently drop content.
Why do my sheet names look different ("Sheet1" instead of "Sales")?
If the file's manifest (xl/workbook.xml) was lost in the corruption, we boilerplate-rebuild it with default sheet names — the data is fully recovered, but the original names are gone with the manifest. The transparency report will say so explicitly.
Can I integrate this into my workflow / automation?
Yes — POST to https://tools-api.excelmaster.ai/v1/excel/repair with input_path (from the /upload endpoint). No API key required for the free tier. For high-volume programmatic use, contact us.