Recover Deleted Rows
I accidentally deleted ALL of the rows on my sheet while trying to make a duplicate. Is there a way to recover this information? It is a lot of crucial data for our project and would be extremely time consuming to recreate!
Answers
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If you check the Activity Log, you may be able to get a "snapshot".
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Smartsheet STILL does not have the ability to FULLY recover deleted rows. Sure, they may be able to send you an Excel style backup/snapshot, but you lose your: Cell history, conversation thread, attachment links, sheet links, formatting, etc etc etc. You 'might' get the raw cell contents back, but telling someone that a .csv is their only backup solution for their .xlsm is laughable.
The .csv is better than nothing, for sure, but after +7 years we really had hoped that a better solution - or heck even a genuine step in the direction of better data security - would be available. But... whatever.
As it stands, 7+ years on and fully, completely, and unequivocally aware, Smartsheet still has the behavior that if someone can edit a single cell within a row of a sheet - they can delete the entire row! And, they can delete it without even getting a pop-up message to ask them if they're sure they want to delete it! (which is funny, because if they try to unlock it they get a pop-up - but if they try to delete it, they succeed without even being questioned)
And, as if it being absurdly easy to lose data wasn’t enough of a kick in the pants, they also still don’t have a true backup option available. Meaning, if you lose a sheet/row/etc – all they can provide you with is a flat excel sheet with a pile of unlinked attachments. All cell history, formatting, links, etc are gone gone gone.
Feel free to review the following community posts, and then decide if you'd like to open an enhancement request on this 7+ year old issue.
Smartsheet: PLEASE do the following:
1. IMMEDIATELY (stop-gap) Implement a pop-up message whenever someone tries to delete a row. (this is already done for the 'unlock row' feature, and should be fast and easy enough to implement for 'delete row')
-zero impact on existing user rights
AND
2a. (solution) Implement a change to the software that will allow sheet owners to prohibit deleting any row that contains a locked cell/column.
OR
2b. (solution) Implement a new user level that is "Editor - safe" where the user has all the rights of an Editor but where the 'delete row' functionality is greyed out. (There is only one permission difference between 'Editor - cannot share' and 'Editor - can share', so the precedent is there.)
Here is my ongoing (and incomplete) list of how many times Smartsheet has ignored this problem:
June 2015
https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/rows-being-removed
August 2015
https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/revert-old-version-sheet
August 2015
https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/avoid-shared-person-delete-my-row
August 2015
https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/conditional-lock
August 2015
https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/find-deleated-items
October 2015
https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/retrieve-deleted-data
February 2016
March 2016
https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/prevent-deletion-rows-if-it-contains-locked-cells
May 2016
https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/allowing-team-members-update-smartsheet
June 2016
https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/prevent-deletion-rows-enhancement-request-again
June 2016
https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/delete-rows-employee-avoide-tasks-completion
June 2016
https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/deleted-rows-there-way-find-out-who
July 2016
https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/historychange-deleted-rows
October 2016
https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/block-rows-been-deleted-editor
February 2017
https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/admin-deleted-bucket
March 2017
https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/retrieving-lost-data
March 2017
https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/viewing-deleting-rows
June 2017
https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/web-form-submissions-disappearing
July 2017
https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/retaining-deleted-info
September 2017
January 2018
https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/adding-back-deleted-rows
March 2018
https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/overwritten-sheet#comment-67946
June 2018
https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/questions-new-user#comments
July 2018
https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/retrieve-deleted-sheets
November 2018
https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/activity-logrows-deleted#comment-124356
July 2019
https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/52766/deleted-content-in-a-row
July 2019
September 2020
May 2022
https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/90947/recover-deleted-rows
May 2022
June 2022
https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/91973/how-can-i-track-deleted-rows
Yes, Smartsheet, you still need to fix this PROBLEM, BAD DESIGN, FLAW!
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@Brad Jones ones Here is a link to the new Product Enhancement Request area in case you wanted to go ahead and submit it...
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This is already something that I have submitted several times over the past 7 years.
With any luck, they will consider it.
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I just experienced this issue and deleted a couple thousand rows thinking I was working in a different sheet. Hopefully I can at least recover a csv
Thanks for the discussion
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I hope you're well and safe!
Have you tried to request a Snapshot from the Activity Log?
Did that work/help?
I hope that helps!
Be safe and have a fantastic week!
Best,
Andrée Starå | Workflow Consultant / CEO @ WORK BOLD
✅Did my post(s) help or answer your question or solve your problem? Please support the Community by marking it Insightful/Vote Up, Awesome, or/and as the accepted answer. It will make it easier for others to find a solution or help to answer!
SMARTSHEET EXPERT CONSULTANT & PARTNER
Andrée Starå | Workflow Consultant / CEO @ WORK BOLD
W: www.workbold.com | E:andree@workbold.com | P: +46 (0) - 72 - 510 99 35
Feel free to contact me for help with Smartsheet, integrations, general workflow advice, or anything else.
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@Andrée Starå I was able to revover a backup excel file, but the predecessor links were broken and I had to reprogram all of the rows. So I was able to recover the data, but I spent a lot of time putting it back together.
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hi @Brad Jones your comment was relly helpfull .
I already have the cvs whith the info that I lost.
How can I recover the attached files?
I already ask smartsheet for it. Do you know how much do I have to wait?
@Rach Gee how was your final experience?
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I completely agree with Brad, there desperately needs to be protected against the deletion of rows. The sheet owner/admin should be able to set the sheet not to allow deletion of any row and have conditional deletion allowed, such as if a column is locked or automation that only deletes a row if certain conditions are true. As Brad states, this a glaring omission and to not even have a dialog popup to confirm that the user realises they are deleting. I have had to recover sheets from SmartBackups twice this week due to unintended deletions. Having SmartBackup in place is something but not ideal when you should be able to stop the deletion from ever occurring.
Please SmartSheet, do something about this urgently.
@Genevieve P. are there any plans on the roadmap to address this?
✅Did my post help answer your question or solve your problem? Please help the Community by marking it as the accepted answer/helpful. It will make it easier for others to find a solution or help to answer!
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How do you put in a popup window when you hit "delete row" so that it warns the user something is about to be deleted? Locking rows does nothing as the 4 people that work out of this form have admin privileges and need to have admin privileges.
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@beaglemomma There is no way to do that within Smartsheet.
Feel free to browse the "Product Ideas" tab at the top to see if someone has submitted it as an enhancement idea already. If they have, you can add your vote. If they have not, then you can submit it yourself as a new idea.
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I just happened upon the workflow automation which would notify someone of a row deletion. This may give the person who deleted it the opportunity to "undo" the deletion.
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If you don't have the activity log option to request the deleted rows back, how do I get them back?
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I have a clunky solution for this that I just had to use for the first time, but it might not work for everyone.
Each week, I create a backup of my entire sheet by using the "Copy to Another Sheet" automation (let's call it "Sheet Name - Weekly Snapshot"). In the backup, I have an additional column where I record the date of the backup (let's call it "Snapshot Date").
Here's where it gets clunky…
A row got accidentally deleted in my main sheet today. I went into the backup and found the latest iteration of that row… and used the "Copy Row to Another Sheet" to copy it to yet a THIRD sheet (let's call it "Sheet Name - Restore". Once I've copied the row to "Sheet Name - Restore" I delete the entire "Snapshot Date" column from the sheet, save it, then use the "Copy to Another Sheet" automation to copy it back to the original sheet. Since all of the columns in "Sheet Name - Restore" match exactly to the original sheet… it slides right in like nothing ever happened (except it might be up to a week old). Comments, Attachments,… everything is there.
Like I said, I've only done this once so far, but it appears to have worked as intended so far.
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There is a Partner Product that does keep a backup for you called SmartBackUp for Smartsheet which can be found here -
Beyond this - the system that @Bo Lewis has created I believe is the best option. You do lose your cell history, so if that is something that you desperately needed, it is just not there.
Smartsheet can sometimes (and I stress only sometimes) offer a one time per account for all of time restoration of a singular sheet if you contact support. This can take a week or longer to complete, so while it may be possible to recover a sheet to the last version before an accidental deletion, this should be used only in an EXTREME case of thousands of rows of data deletion for example. And they are not always able to complete this request, so beware of keeping that as your solution to losing data.
Michelle Choate
michelle.choate@outlook.com
Always happy to walk through any project you need help with! Book time with me here: https://calendly.com/michelle-choate
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