"We found a problem with some content in 'file.xlsx'" — what to do.
Excel showed "We found a problem with some content in 'file.xlsx'. Do you want us to try to recover as much as we can?" because it detected an inconsistency in the workbook package. Upload the .xlsx to see the sheets, row counts, and a masked cell sample recovered from a rebuilt copy. A one-time $14 — and only if the repair works.
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Recovering what we can.
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Here's what we recovered.
Review the recovery summary before checkout.
Your files auto-delete — delete them sooner anytime
No person looks at your file as part of repair
Repair your file
Choose a supported file to see what can be repaired before checkout.
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You preview before you pay. If the download is materially worse than the preview you approved, we'll refund you.
Try another fileGood news — your file isn't damaged. No charge.
There's nothing to repair. If it still looks broken, the issue may be the player, codec, or viewer on your device rather than the file itself.
We couldn't recover this one.
The file is too damaged to rebuild, so there is nothing to preview and no charge.
Have another clip from the same device?
A healthy video recorded on the same device — ideally the same settings — gives the repair engine a template to rebuild from. It can unlock repairs that fail on their own.
Unrepaired files are kept encrypted for up to 30 days, then deleted.
FileFix can't fix that kind of file yet.
Right now we repair video, audio, document, and image files (MP4, MOV, M4V, MKV, AVI, TS, MTS, M2TS, MPG, MPEG, VOB, 3GP, WebM, FLV, M4A, WAV, MP3, AAC, FLAC, OGG, AIFF, XLSX, DOCX, PPTX, ODT, ZIP, PDF, AI, HEIC, and HEIF). We're adding support for more formats over time.
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FileFix can often repair this kind of damage if the file is recoverable.
Why this happens
This prompt appears when Excel opens the package but finds a worksheet, shared-string, or relationship part that does not match what it expects. Excel offers to strip out what it cannot read, which can produce a working file — or one that silently drops the content you needed.
The dialog itself is a fork: clicking Yes tells Excel to remove whatever it could not parse and open the rest, which can be exactly right — or can quietly cost you the sheet you needed. That is why the log Excel offers afterwards matters, and why keeping the untouched original file safe before you click anything gives you a second path if Excel's version comes back incomplete.
Before any repair, check the recovery avenues you may already have: a version history in OneDrive or SharePoint, an earlier copy in sent mail, or the source system that exported the workbook in the first place. A clean earlier copy is better than any rebuild, because repair can only work with bytes that still exist in the damaged file.
Run Excel's recovery on a copy and check its repair log and your key sheets before trusting the result. If the recovery removes important data or Excel still cannot open the workbook, the damaged parts need a different rebuild rather than another removal pass.
FileFix scans the surviving ZIP members, applies fault-tolerant recovery to worksheet and shared-string XML, and writes a fresh .xlsx that it validates with an independent reader. The free summary lists the sheets and rows the rebuilt workbook actually contains, so you can compare it against what Excel offered to keep.
What we can and can't recover
We can usually fix
- Files that show "Excel found unreadable content"
- Files Excel calls an invalid format or extension
- Workbooks cut off mid-save or mid-transfer
- Files that show the right size but won't open
We can't fix
- Password-protected/encrypted workbooks
- Genuinely empty (0-byte) files
- Deleted or formatted files (that's data recovery, a different job)
- The old binary .xls format (this repair is for .xlsx)
How it works
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Upload Drop the file in. It uploads over an encrypted connection. The repair runs automatically — no person looks at your file.
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Free Recovery Summary You see exactly what we recovered — sheet names, row counts, and a small sample.
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Pay & Download If the summary shows what you need, unlock the repaired Excel file for a one-time $14.
You see a recovery summary built from your actual file before you decide anything — so you never guess.
See what's recoverable.
Free recovery summary · private & auto-deleted
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Questions
Not by itself. The message means part of the workbook package failed Excel's checks — the rest is often intact. What is actually recoverable only becomes visible when a rebuild is attempted, which is what the free sheet-and-row summary shows you.
Try it on a copy and review the repair log Excel produces. Save any result under a new name and confirm your important sheets survived; if the recovery drops what you needed, upload the untouched file for a separate rebuild.
The removal happened in the copy Excel saved, not in your original file. If you still have the untouched .xlsx, upload that one — a separate rebuild works from everything still inside the package, not from what Excel chose to keep.
Excel discards package parts it cannot parse rather than repairing them. A different engine may recover some of those parts, which is why the FileFix summary reports what its own rebuilt workbook contains.
Working from the original untouched .xlsx gives the engine the most to recover. If Excel has already saved a stripped-down version, keep the original copy and upload that instead.