Excel files on onedrive have reverted to versions created months ago

Question

Excel files on onedrive have reverted to versions created months ago

Laurence Edge 25

Two strange events with Excel this week:

The android version has lost all the files I had pinned. I re-pinned them yesterday and they have been lost again.
More worrying, an of Excel spreadsheet that I have been updating on a daily basis for the last two months has reverted to the originally created version, losing all the added data
I have checked the version of the file on my laptop and that has also reverted, so it looks like a Onedrive issue

Help!

J C Lopez 0 Reputation points

2026-10-17T12:07:34.9566667+00:00

I was updating daily important health data on Excel for Android for years through early 2026. I got a new phone and my old phone was wiped and recycled. I was forced to resume data entry recently and found the data in my OneDrive file has reverted back to approximately one month after creating the file in 2023! I've tried version history etc and have finally determined the most likely cause it's that Excel at some point made a local version of the file on my phone and was updating it there and no longer updating OneDrive. This seems to be the truth for many Excel users on Android and I have extensive tested this by opening and closing an Excel file on my phone, each time entering the exact time as data. After only 22 entries, the OneDrive version stopped updating as seen by my laptop, but the Android version kept saving data!

Answer accepted by question author

Restee Miranda 14,140 Independent Advisor

Hi Laurence,

To check the version history of a file in OneDrive, right-click the file (either on the web or in File Explorer) and choose "Version history." You may be able to restore the right version from there.

Try to check One Drive recycle bin as well. Older versions that was marked were deleted or moved to the recycle bin. Check if the version history if it can still show the last version you were working on.

I have also linked a non MS website here as they have workarounds:

https://www.reddit.com/r/onedrive/comments/1g1dy3w/onedrive_overwriting_files_with_older_versions/

Hope it helps.

All the best,

Restee M.

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2 additional answers

Your answer

J C Lopez 0 Reputation points

2026-10-17T12:07:34.9566667+00:00

I was updating daily important health data on Excel for Android for years through early 2026. I got a new phone and my old phone was wiped and recycled. I was forced to resume data entry recently and found the data in my OneDrive file has reverted back to approximately one month after creating the file in 2023! I've tried version history etc and have finally determined the most likely cause it's that Excel at some point made a local version of the file on my phone and was updating it there and no longer updating OneDrive. This seems to be the truth for many Excel users on Android and I have extensive tested this by opening and closing an Excel file on my phone, each time entering the exact time as data. After only 22 entries, the OneDrive version stopped updating as seen by my laptop, but the Android version kept saving data!

Answer 1

Palcouk 2,926

On the laptop, via File Explorer locate that excel doc and rt click for version history.

A file opened from OneDrive cannot 'revert' to an earlier version unless the user has deleted versions, in whch case access OneDrive via web browser access to recover deleted.

Laurence Edge 25 Reputation points

2025-08-05T14:47:24.58+00:00

Thanks. I've found a manual backup so given up worrying. Just won't trust Eccel on Android from now on

Answer 2

Laurence Edge 25

No version history is shown. The file shows its original creation date (in May) and contains none of the subsequent updates.

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