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Excel file changes not being saved

Hi,

I use an Excel file saved to a folder in my Dropbox. This is accessed by two colleagues both of whom use Office for Mac as do I (Office 365 in two cases, not sure if one is standalone Office for Mac or 365)

In any event, though I successfully save changes to the file, when one of my colleagues accesses the file later it's as if I've never edited it at all.

I see from a 2018 community post/reply that Excel files in Dropbox can only be edited successfully using Office online. Is this still true?

If this is the case, I'm disappointed that this is not made clear in some way for users of DropBox (perhaps an alert for any .xls or .xlsx files saved) because I suspect that a lot of people have lost data as a result.

So I guess the question is, is the problem of not being able to edit Excel files with the desktop version of Excel still true?

Cheers

Iain

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Walter

Hi @IainF; welcome to the Dropbox Community!

When you say you successfully saved your changes on the said file, can you clarify if you've also noticed our desktop app within your menu bar state that it's 'Up to date' which means you're fully synced?

In that case, could you take a look at the file's version history on our website and see if those edits were somehow overwritten?

Let me know what you find and we'll take it from there Iain.

IainF

Hi Walter,

I'll have a look at this tomorrow with 'real data'. I'd rather not alter the file just for the sake of it.

I haven't spotted anything to suggest that the file isn't up to date but I'll look tomorrow.

Thanks for your help with this

Cheers

Iain

PS is there a way to jump straight to my own posts in the community forum?

Walter

Feel free to take your time and report back with your findings whenever you get the chance Iain!

As for your posts on our Community, you can navigate to your account's profile to see them directly by clicking on your avatar (or the smiley icon) on your upper right corner.

Keep me posted and stay safe!

IainF

Hi Walter

made some entries to the Excel file in Dropbox with Excel on my Mac.

When I opened the file there was banner below the toolbar that said the Excel had recovered some changes and did I want to restore them. The file looked complete so I clicked no.

Having made the entries I saved the file. There was no obvious indication that anything had happened.

In the title bar there is a greyed out text saying "saved to my Mac".

I went into DropBox and looked at the version history and it seemed that the last edit time was tonight, at the time I made the changes. I opened the file in Excel for the web and the entries were there.

So I'm not sure whether this an intermittent error, whether I've changed something or am doing things differently or what!

Any other suggestions?

Cheers

Iain

IainF

Hi,

Still having a problem with Excel files not apparently syncing to Dropbox on saving on my Mac.

I extensively edited a file, changed formulas etc and saved it (twice) to Dropbox.

When one of my colleagues edited the file later that day and saved it (again from a Mac) the file was significantly smaller than the one I had saved (as shown by the file size in the version history). When I opened the file again today all my formula edits were gone though the additional columns I'd inserted and named were still there.

If Dropbox cannot reliably save changes it's pretty useless.

What is going on?

Cheers

Iain

PS in the user forum, is there a way to go back to my own posts?

Walter

Hi again @IainF; glad to see you back in our Community and sorry to hear you're still having issues with syncing your shared excel files.

Can you please let me know if you've ensured that our desktop app was reporting 'Up to date' after you finished working on the mentioned files? Did your new changes make it to our website, meaning you were able to see them on dropbox.com?

Could you perhaps try to re-install both our desktop app and the Excel app on the affected computer and try again?

Do you still get the same results?

Please keep me posted on your findings Iain!

IainF

Hi Walter,

can't comment on the previous time there was a problem but I've checked the menu bar dropdown and it currently says "up to date".

The issue I have is the obvious change in file size. It looks like I saved a file of around 55KB and when Jo opened/saved it, it was 52KB (I guess accounting for the loss of the edits).
I'm not sure that this is a saving issue but that the file being opened by Jo is not (apparently) the one I saved (maybe the one she last edited) but when she saves her changes they over-write my changes.
I've checked that she is opening the file in the relevant DropBox folder

I attach a picture.
Cheers

Iain Excel file history, file size change.png

Walter

Thanks for all the additional information @IainF!

Can you please forward me 2 screenshots of this file so I can have a look?

I'd appreciate one of how the file looks like on your end after editing it and one of how it looks like when your collaborator is opening it on their end.

IainF

Hi Walter

The contents of the file are confidential (no kidding).

The file is pretty basic. It has day and date columns, a series of columns that are counted by row if the cells are occupied. The count of occupied cells in each row is then used to calculate an amount in the next column.

Basically my edits to the spreadsheet in terms of adding columns, renaming columns and altering formulas are lost. I guess the additional columns and updated formulas account for the increase in file size when I save it and that the decrease in file size when Jo saves the file is because the edits are lost or were never present...

I could send you a dummy of the file with non-confidential data but that's the best I could do.

Cheers

Iain

IainF

Hi Walter,

Any other thoughts?

This hasn't been explained or sorted out as yet (as far as I know)

I'd be interested in any help you have to offer.

Cheers

Iain

Walter

I'm sorry for the late reply @IainF.

Can you check @edwards142 reply on this thread and let me know if it helps in your case as well?

Thanks!

IainF

Hi Walter

I'm not sure that this is relevant to my case.

Though I may be wrong I think that the file is being saved OK to DropBox when I save it but when it's opened by Jo, it seems that she is opening an old version.

I don't know how but I can't think of any other explanation.

Cheers

Iain

Lusil

Hey @IainF, I just wanted to jump in here and mention that, if another user is having trouble previewing the updated versiom of the file, I'd recommend checking with them:

How they are previewing the file in question (via the website, the desktop app, or the mobile app)?
What does their version history show for that file?
If the file is shared with other users, are they having the same issue?

Let us know what you find, thanks!

IainF

Hi Lusil,

I think you're correct and the answer is pretty prosaic.

Though Jo has dropbox installed she was using 'open recent' in Excel to open the file and the app was just pointing to the old version, (not sure where) rather than opening the one I'd updated. I don't know if DropBox wasn't syncing the changes to her folder or what.

From now on we'll open the file directly from DropBox and see if that solves the problem.

Fingers crossed.

Thanks both for your help.

Cheers

Iain

Lusil

No worries, @IainF! We're always around to assist if you have any other questions, so don't hesitate to give us another nudge.

In the meantime, have a lovely day ahead!