Audit hidden content in an Excel workbook

Audit what an Excel workbook could be overlooked-hiding: hidden and very-hidden sheets, hidden rows and columns, defined names that may point somewhere you did …

Excelaudithidden contentXLSX

Questions people ask

What counts as "hidden" content here?: Workbook facts you could overlook: sheets marked hidden or very-hidden (very-hidden never appears in Excel's unhide dialog), rows and columns carrying the hidden flag, defined names whose ranges land on a hidden sheet, and references that reach outside the file, external workbook references, the package's external-link parts, data-connection files, and formula cells with bracketed citations like [1]Sheet!A1.
Does the audit open the linked workbooks?: Never. External references are read as facts from the file's own structure (connection counts and target part names); no target is opened, fetched or followed, no formula is evaluated, and nothing leaves the isolated job.
What does the formula citation finding mean?: A stated heuristic over formula TEXT: cells whose stored expression carries the bracketed citation shape other-workbook formulas use. A value pasted from another workbook carries no citation and is invisible to any text scan, the tool says this rather than implying complete coverage.
A clean result means the file is safe?: No. It means none of the surfaces this audit scans holds anything hidden. It says nothing about comments, revision histories, tracked changes, document properties, cell values containing sensitive data in plain sight, or anything else the visibility sweep does not look at. Treat the audit as one lens, not a verdict.
Why are macro workbooks refused?: Macro files carry an entirely different threat model. The rest of the Office family refuses them for the same reason: this audit reads visibility facts, and opening VBA project material is a different job with different guarantees. Save the workbook without macros and retry.
What happens to my files?: The upload is removed as soon as processing finishes; the report stays available for about 10 minutes and is then deleted automatically.

About this tool

Workbooks rarely hide data maliciously, people hide it to keep sheets tidy, and months later nobody remembers which tabs are switched off or which numbers come from a file nobody has anymore. This audit sweeps exactly those surfaces and gives back one visible report: sheet states, hidden row and column positions, defined names, and every structural trace of data reaching into (or from) outside the file. Technical details: the workbook is opened read-only with openpyxl; visibility is read from stored state, not inferred from rendering. External references and connection plumbing are parsed from the OOXML package structure directly. The citation heuristic matches the same bracketed-formula vocabulary as xlsx-formula-inventory and carries the same stated limits. Output sizes are bounded: 20-plus sheets listed, 60 hidden rows per sheet sampled against full counts, 15 defined names sampled with an 80-character reference bound, the workbook's own report.json carries the complete picture within those caps.

File limits

Exactly 1 file per job
Each at most 8 MiB
Result at most 8 MiB

Supported formats

XLSX

Capabilities

Excelaudithidden content

Privacy & processing

Your file is processed in an isolated job on Tooley's own infrastructure. No third-party services are involved and nothing is stored beyond the result window.

Uploads are removed as soon as processing finishes. Results stay available for about 10 minutes, then they are deleted automatically.