Deleted files still showing/opening in MS Excel

Question

Level 1

15 points

Deleted files still showing/opening in MS Excel

Hi

I have 6 files in MS excel that were deleted from my docs in finder and I did secure empty of the trash. However, the files still appear and can be opened in excel. I tried searching for them by file name but can't seem to locate where excel is hiding them on my MacBook Air. I'm running Mountain Lion 10.8.3 and Microsoft Office for Mac 2011.

Any Suggestions?

Thanks

MacBook Air, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on May 6, 2013 4:45 PM

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Answer 1

Red Dwarf

Level 6

14,950 points

May 7, 2013 9:31 AM in response to CarolynnP

Hi CarolynnP,

One thought that immediately comes to mind is the possibility that those documents may still exist as attachments to emails you have received, perhaps?

If you fire up Excel and select File->Open Recent you'll see the recently opened files in the sub-menu. If you move your cursor to one of those files (don't click on the file just move the cursor to it) after a couple of seconds a yellow box appears which will tell you exactly where that file is located.

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Answer 2

CarolynnP Author

Level 1

15 points

May 8, 2013 7:10 PM in response to CarolynnP

Red Dwarf - Thanks for the reply, the files were not in emails and i was not able to get the yellow box but you gave me another idea. I added a footer to the document with the path name to see where it was and discovered that it was saving it as a template. So after more searching I was able to find a solution on an office support page which I have shared below. Thanks

In the Finder, open /Users/ username/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Office/User Templates/My Templates.
NOTE If you are using Mac OS X 7 (Lion), the Library folder is hidden by default. To show the Library folder, in the Finder, click the Go menu, and then hold down OPTION .
Drag the templates that you want to delete to the Trash.

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