By Achilles Hill | Last Updated
When you receive the error message written with "Excel cannot open the file because the file format or file extension is not valid" in MS Excel 2019/2016/2013/2010/2007, what can you do to fix the error so that you can rescue your Excel file? If you are meeting this trouble and want to free from it, this guide can come to handy.
This way usually works when you try to open a spreadsheet whose file extension is not supported by the MS Excel application installed in your computer. For example, you need to access .xls file in Excel 2016 which is generally compatible with .xlsx files. Before changing the file extension of the workbook, it's highly suggested to make a duplication of the unopenable Excel file in case that the extension modification damages the file data by accident.
Step 1: Access File Explorer. Switch to View tab and enable the option File name extensions.
Step 2: Locate to the workbook that is stuck with the error. Then rename its file extension to the one that the installed Excel supports, usually the .xlsx extension.
Now, open the workbook again to check whether the error message is removed.
Open and Repair is the built-in utility of MS Excel, which can help fix minor corruptions of your worksheet. To use this function, just follow the 4 steps here.
Step 1: Launch MS Excel program.
Step 2: Select Open option from the left pane and click Browse in the middle section. After that, the Open dialog will be popped out.
Step 3: Choose the unopenable Excel file. Then, click the down arrow of Open button in the lower-left corner and select Open and Repair option.
Step 4: Hit Repair button in the displayed prompt to recover as much of your work as possible.
If the ways above fail to get rid of the error message "Excel cannot open the file because the file format or file extension is not valid" for your workbook, then you can consider repairing the broken Excel file by using the professional file repair tool named iSunshare Excel Repair Genius. This Excel file repair tool can quickly and effectively resolve various corruptions of the Excel .xlsx file while keeping the file content unchanging. You can test this tool by executing the several steps below.
Step 1: Install iSunshare Excel Repair Genius on your Windows computer.
Step 2: Run the tool and click Open button to input the corrupted XLSX file to repair.
Step 3: Hit Restore button to begin repairing the input Excel file.
Step 4: After the file is recovered, a tips box will be shown to remind you and you can hit OK button to move on.
Step 5: Click Save option to save the repaired file to a place you wish.
At last, you can directly view the saved healthy file by clicking Yes button in the box.
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