IntactFile

Repair a corrupted Excel file — without your data leaving your device

Spreadsheets are payroll, clients, and money. Fixing one shouldn't mean handing a copy to a server you can't see.

Your file never leaves your device — repair runs in your browser. 0 bytes uploaded.

Your data is the big block — usually intact. What breaks is the small index. Repair rebuilds it.

Drop a file here or browseTap to choose a file

ZIP · Office · PDF · video · JPG · PNG · RAR/7z · SQLite — repaired right here in your browser. Nothing is uploaded

0 bytes uploadedFree: 3 repairs/day — up to 500 MB video, 100 MB docs & archives, 50 MB photos. Free download. Single repair €5.90. No account required.

IntactFile repairs corrupted or unreadable .xlsxworkbooks by opening them at the archive level and salvaging the sheets, cell values, and formulas that survived. It runs entirely in your browser — your spreadsheet is never uploaded, and you can confirm 0 bytes leave your device in the Network tab. The honest limit: cells whose underlying data is truly destroyed can't be brought back, only the parts that are still readable.

Repair your workbook now

  1. Drop the .xlsx
  2. Repair runs locally
  3. Download the rebuilt workbook

To repair a corrupted Excel file, you open it at the archive level (an .xlsx is a ZIP of XML parts), salvage the readable parts, and rebuild a workbook from them. IntactFile does that in your browser: drop the file, the engine reads it locally, and you download the result with a report of exactly which sheets came back. Your spreadsheet is never uploaded.

Try Excel's own repair first

Excel ships a repair mode most people never see, and it's free: File → Open → Browse, select the damaged file, then click the small arrow next to the Open button and choose Open and Repair. Pick Repair first; if that fails, run it again and pick Extract Data, which pulls values and formulas out of the wreckage and discards the rest. When it works, you're done.

When it doesn't (Excel reports the workbook can't be repaired, or hands you an empty grid), the file's structure is damaged in a way Excel's own path can't route around. That's the case for archive-level repair, and to see why it works, you need one fact about what an .xlsx actually is.

An .xlsx file is secretly a ZIP

Rename any healthy workbook from report.xlsx to report.zip and open it: you'll find folders of XML files. One part per sheet holds your cells and formulas; others hold styles, charts, and shared text, and (because it's a ZIP) a table of contents at the end of the file tells readers where each part lives.

So "corrupted Excel file" means one of two things: the ZIP container is broken (truncated download, interrupted save — the table of contents is damaged while the sheet parts survive), or one XML part inside is broken while the rest are fine. Both are partial-damage situations, and that's exactly why ZIP-level repair recovers workbooks: the engine finds each surviving part by its own header, no table of contents needed, and rebuilds a workbook from what's readable — the same mechanism as ZIP repair, pointed at spreadsheets.

Why spreadsheets deserve no-upload

Be concrete about what's in a broken workbook: salaries, client lists, margins, bank details. Upload-based repair services ask you to send that file to their servers and trust their handling of it. With in-browser repair there is no copy to trust anyone with: the file is read from your disk, rebuilt in your tab's memory, and saved back to your disk. There is nothing to store, because nothing is received. And you don't have to take that on faith:open the Network tab and watch while it runs.

What gets recovered

Setting expectations precisely: cell values, formulas, and sheet structure recover best, because they live in the sheet XML parts that archive-level salvage targets. More fragile are formatting, charts, pivot caches, embedded objects, and VBA macros — they live in separate parts, and whichever of those were damaged or cut off don't come back. The result report lists sheet by sheet what was rebuilt, so you know the gaps before you open the file.

What this can and can't fix

Can fix

  • Broken ZIP container around intact sheet parts — the common case
  • Truncated workbooks: every readable part before the cut is salvaged
  • Workbooks Open and Repair rejects or returns blank
  • Damage confined to some parts — the surviving sheets come back, reported by name

Can't fix

  • Sheet parts whose compressed data is itself destroyed — those cells no longer exist in the file
  • VBA macros, pivot caches, and embedded objects in damaged parts may not survive
  • Password-encrypted workbooks without the password
  • Files that read 0 bytes — a data-recovery problem, not a repair problem

If the salvage comes back empty, we tell you why, and a failed repair is never charged.

FAQ

How do I repair a corrupted Excel file?

Two steps, in order. First try Excel's built-in Open and Repair (File → Open → Browse → select the file → click the arrow next to the Open button). If that fails or returns an empty grid, drop the file into the tool above: it opens the workbook at the archive level, salvages the readable parts, and reports which sheets came back, in your browser, never uploaded.

How do I use Open and Repair in Excel?

File → Open → Browse. Select the damaged workbook, then click the small arrow next to the Open button and choose Open and Repair. Excel offers two modes: Repair (tries to fix the file) and Extract Data (pulls out values and formulas, discarding the rest). Try Repair first, Extract Data second.

Can I recover data from a corrupted XLSX without Excel?

Yes. An .xlsx is a ZIP archive of XML files, so the sheet data can be salvaged with archive-level tools — no Excel required. The tool on this page does exactly that in your browser and rebuilds a workbook from the parts that survived.

Why does my Excel file open blank?

A blank grid after a 'successful' open or repair usually means the workbook's structure loaded but the sheet data didn't: the parts holding your cells are damaged or unreachable inside the file. Archive-level salvage can often still reach them, because it doesn't need the workbook's own wiring to be intact to read the individual parts.

Excel says 'We found a problem with some content' — what do I do?

Click Yes and let Excel try to recover; sometimes that's the end of it. If recovery fails or the result is missing sheets, stop re-saving the file (each attempt can overwrite information) and run a structural repair on a copy. The full message reads: "We found a problem with some content in 'name.xlsx'. Do you want us to try to recover as much as we can?"

Is it safe to upload financial spreadsheets to online repair tools?

You're sending payroll, client lists, or company financials to someone else's server, on their retention terms; for many businesses that's a policy violation before it's a technical question. The safer path is a tool where no upload happens at all. Here, the repair runs in your browser; you can verify in DevTools that 0 bytes are transmitted.

Related: Excel refuses the file outright — the file format or file extension is not valid · Any archive that won't open — repair ZIP files · Contracts and records — repair PDF files ·verify the zero-upload claim