SharePoint Spreadsheet Not Opening: Fixing the Office Cache Error

Fixing “Sorry, We Couldn’t Open ‘spreadsheet.xlsx’” in Office

If Office throws an error along the lines of “Sorry, we couldn’t open ‘filename.xlsx’” when you try to open a file from SharePoint or OneDrive, the usual culprit is a corrupted local Office document cache rather than a problem with the actual file — Office keeps a local cache of documents it’s synced with SharePoint/OneDrive, and that cache can get into a bad state. To clear it:

• Close all Office applications completely.
• Search Windows for “Microsoft Office Upload Center” if you’re on an older Office build, or
• Close Office, then delete the contents of the Office Document Cache folder, found under your user profile at %localappdata%\Microsoft\Office\16.0\OfficeFileCache (the version number may differ depending on your Office build).
• Restart your computer, then try opening the file from SharePoint again.

Clearing the cache just forces Office to re-download a fresh copy of the file rather than relying on its local (corrupted) copy, so it doesn’t affect the actual document stored on SharePoint or OneDrive.

If Clearing the Cache Doesn’t Fix It

A couple of follow-up steps worth trying if the error persists after a cache clear and restart: first, try opening the file directly through the OneDrive sync client folder on disk (rather than via a browser link into SharePoint) — if it opens fine locally, the problem is specifically in how Office is talking to SharePoint online rather than the file itself. Second, check File > Account in the Office app and make sure you’re signed in with the correct account for that specific SharePoint site — a stale or mismatched sign-in (particularly common if you have access to multiple Microsoft 365 tenants) can throw exactly this kind of “couldn’t open” error even though the cache itself is fine. If you’re on a version of Office where the Document Cache folder path above doesn’t exist at all, it’s worth checking whether your build has moved to the newer unified Office cache location instead, or whether the specific app (particularly the new, unified Outlook) manages its own separate local data store rather than sharing the classic OfficeFileCache folder — the underlying “clear the local cache and let it resync” principle still applies, just via a different folder or in-app reset option depending on exactly which client and version you’re troubleshooting.

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