Excel's legacy shared workbook and co-authoring: which user names end up inside the file
Last updated: 25 October 2026
Short answer: the two ways of working on a workbook together keep their history in different places. The older Shared Workbook feature keeps it inside the file: a header for each saved set of changes, with the user's name and the date; a log of the changes, with the old value of each changed cell; and a list of users, each with the time they opened the shared workbook. Co-authoring on OneDrive or SharePoint shows changes in Show Changes and Version History, and Microsoft's pages do not say that this history is inside the .xlsx. Either way, the file itself can name the last person who saved it, the folder it was saved in, and everyone who left a comment or note. Turn sharing off in a copy, remove the comments and properties, and check the copy.
Two ways to work on a workbook together
Microsoft's page About the shared workbook feature says: "'Shared Workbooks' is an older feature that allows you to collaborate on a workbook with multiple people. This feature has many limitations, and has been replaced by co-authoring." A shared workbook is placed on a network location, not on OneDrive or SharePoint, and once it is shared, "- Shared will appear at the top of the Excel window, next to the filename". In newer versions the buttons are hidden; What happened to shared workbooks in Excel? shows how to add Share Workbook (Legacy) and Track Changes (Legacy) to the Quick Access Toolbar.
Co-authoring is described on Collaborate on Excel workbooks at the same time with co-authoring: the workbook is stored on OneDrive, OneDrive for Business or a SharePoint Online library, and "you can see each other's changes quickly—in a matter of seconds".
What a shared workbook keeps inside the file
Microsoft's reference for the Open XML SDK reproduces the text of ISO/IEC 29500 (the 2008 first edition) for the parts a shared workbook adds. On the revision headers, it says that a batch of changes "is saved to the revision history, which is persisted on disk with the file in the form of different log files and headers".
| Part | What it holds | Names |
|---|---|---|
| Revision headers | One header for each saved set of changes: "It lists when the changes were made, who made them", and where the log of those changes is. The list also records how many days the change history is kept (preserveHistory). | userName, "the name of the user making the revision", with dateTime |
| Revision logs | The changes themselves. A cell change holds the "Old Cell Data" and the "New Cell Data", so a value you overwrote can still be in the file. | Mostly through the header the log belongs to; a change to a comment (Revision Cell Comment) also has an author attribute |
| User list | A userInfo entry for each user, which "stores information about a specific user as it relates to revisions" | name, the "Display name for this user", with the "Date and time when this user opened the shared workbook" |
The pages above do not give the part names Excel uses. To find the parts in an unzipped copy, search them for the elements described above: headers with userName on each header, revisions, and users with its userInfo entries. Two more places can hold names in a shared workbook:
- Personal views. About the shared workbook feature says that after you remove a user, "To delete any personal view settings of the removed user, select View > Custom Views and delete any other user views."
- Notes. The same page lists "Adding threaded comments" and "Editing, or deleting threaded comments" among what a shared workbook does not support, so a comment added there would be a note (our reading of that list), and notes keep their author. Where those names are kept is in Excel's threaded comments and notes.
What co-authoring keeps, and where
Microsoft's page Show changes made in a workbook says you can "see who changed a workbook, what they changed, and when they made the change", that the Changes pane "also shows the previous cell value for reference", and, on the day we checked, "You can view changes from the past 365 days."
The page Get help with Show Changes in Excel says the pane can be empty if someone "Uploaded the file, saved a copy, or replaced the file", and that Reset Changes, in Excel for the web, clears the pane for everyone; for older changes it points to File › Info › Version History. It adds: "This action doesn't clear all traces of past changes. Revision logs, version history, and other tracking might still show previous changes to the workbook." Neither page says where the Show Changes history is stored, and we found no Microsoft page that says it is inside the .xlsx you download or attach. What a sharing link can reach beyond the file, such as earlier versions, is in OneDrive and SharePoint links vs attachments.
What the co-authored file itself carries is the ordinary set. The Document Inspector page says Microsoft 365 "automatically maintains the name of the person who most recently saved a workbook". The workbook can also record where it was saved: [MS-XLSX] defines an absPath element that "specifies the absolute path to the workbook"; a path such as C:\Users\(name)\Documents would show that name (our example, not Microsoft's). This is not particular to co-authored files. Threaded comments keep each commenter in a list of people; see Excel's threaded comments and notes.
What Document Inspector can and cannot do here
The Document Inspector page says the inspectors for Comments and Annotations, Document Properties and Personal Information, and Headers and Footers "can't be used in a workbook that has been saved as a shared workbook", "because shared workbooks use personal information to enable different persons to collaborate on the same workbook". Its advice: "copy the workbook and then unshare it". For a workbook that is not shared, it lists, among other items, comments, the document properties and the user name. Its list for Excel does not mention a shared workbook's change history.
Turning sharing off, and checking the copy
- Make the copy you will send first, and work on that. If you need the record of changes, About the shared workbook feature suggests copying the change history before you turn sharing off: in the original, Track Changes › Highlight Changes, When: All, clear Who and Where, select List changes on a new sheet, then print or copy the History worksheet. It shows every name and change, so if a History sheet appears in the copy you will send, delete it.
- Make sure no one else is working in it. In Review › Share Workbook, on the Editing tab, check that you are the only person in the Who has this workbook open now list, then clear Allow changes by more than one user. If the box is not available, the page says to unprotect the shared workbook first.
- Delete other people's personal views in View › Custom Views.
- With sharing off, run Document Inspector on the copy, or remove the comments, notes and properties yourself.
- Check the title bar: "- Shared" should be gone. Then rename another copy to .zip, unzip it, and look for the revision headers, revision logs and user list described above. We found no Microsoft page that says what turning sharing off removes from the file, so this is the check that tells you.
- Search every part for the names of the people who worked on it, and look at
docProps/core.xmlforcp:lastModifiedBy.
For a co-authored workbook, the file to check is the copy you will send: download or save a copy, then look at its properties, comments and notes in the same way.
What ScrubDrop does
ScrubDrop reads the workbook in your browser; the file is not uploaded. It lists a shared workbook's change history under tracked changes: one item for each revision log (or, if there is no log, the header and user-list parts), named by the part, without reading the names out of it. It counts among the properties the user name in the workbook's file-sharing settings (the fileSharing element, which "tracks file sharing settings for the workbook", such as a password to modify; not the Shared Workbook feature), any custom views and the saved-in path, and it lists comments and notes. For free, one file at a time, it removes the change history, that is the revision headers, the revision logs with the comment authors in them and the user list, and it removes the properties, including that user name, the custom views and the saved-in path, and the comments and notes. The cells keep their current values. This is what the engine's code does; we tried it on a hand-written synthetic test file, not on a workbook saved by Excel, and the result is re-read with separate parsers before ScrubDrop offers it. We have not checked how Excel opens the result, so turn sharing off in Excel first, or open the result in Excel and check the title bar. ScrubDrop does not reach Show Changes or version history kept with OneDrive or SharePoint.
Questions
Does turning off Shared Workbook delete the change history from the file?
Microsoft's page suggests copying the change history to a History worksheet before you turn the feature off, but we found no page that says what stays in the file afterwards. Unzip a copy and look for the revision headers, revision logs and user list.
Why can't Document Inspector remove the properties from my workbook?
If the workbook is saved as a shared workbook, Microsoft's page says the Comments and Annotations, Document Properties and Personal Information, and Headers and Footers inspectors can't be used, because shared workbooks use personal information to let people collaborate. Copy the workbook, unshare it, and inspect the copy.
Does a downloaded copy of a co-authored workbook carry the Show Changes history?
Microsoft's pages do not say where that history is kept. They say the Changes pane can be empty after someone uploads the file, saves a copy or replaces it. The copy still carries its own properties, comments and notes, so check those.
Sources: the Microsoft pages linked on this page were checked on 25 October 2026. ScrubDrop is not affiliated with Microsoft.
Remove a shared workbook's change history, in your browser. Free: one file at a time; every supported kind of hidden data it finds is listed, and properties, comments and tracked changes are removed. Check a file.