• Microsoft Excel Slow To Open
• Excel Is Working Slow
• Why Is My Excel So Slow On Mac
• Why Is Microsoft Excel So Slow On Mac Computer

Fix Excel Freezing or Slow. By Mitch Bartlett 53 Comments. Microsoft Excel is a powerful program. So powerful, that it’s probably the most susceptible to have problems. I have troubleshot problems with Excel freezing and saying “Not Responding” in Windows. The reasons this happen can vary greatly. Oct 10, 2015  Excel is not native on a Mac, so it's bounded to be slow - especially if you're using it on an old machine. As I see it, you have two options: 1) Upgrade to Office 2016, which includes a much more stable version of Excel. This solution suits particularly those with a fairly new Mac. Jun 24, 2019 When Microsoft Office slows down, showing you spinning wheels and requiring long wait times, it breaks your flow and concentration, ultimately affecting your productivity. Thankfully, there are a few proven ways to speed up Microsoft Office on your Mac, and most of them are as simple as tidying up.

Note

Office 365 ProPlus is being renamed to Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise. For more information about this change, read this blog post.

Symptoms

When you try to open a file from a network location in one of the Microsoft Office programs such as PowerPoint 2003 , Excel 2003, Publisher 2003 or a later version of them, the Office program may run very slowly or may appear to stop responding (hang).

Cause

This behavior may occur if the connection to the network location is lost during the time that your Office program is opening the file.

Workaround

Important

This section, method, or task contains steps that tell you how to modify the registry. However, serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully. For added protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up and restore the registry, see How to back up and restore the registry in Windows.

To work around this behavior, add the EnableShellDataCaching value to the Microsoft Windows registry. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Close your Office programs.

2. Click Start, and then click Run.

3. In the Open box, type regedit, and then click OK.

4. Locate, and then click to select one of the following registry keys accordingly:

   • Office 365, Office 2019 and Office 2016:

     HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftOffice16.0CommonOpen Find

   • Office 2013:

     HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftOffice15.0CommonOpen Find

   • Office 2010:

     HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftOffice14.0CommonOpen Find

   • Office 2007:

     HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftOffice12.0CommonOpen Find

   • Office 2003:

     UPDATE TO THE LATEST VERSION OF THE OUTLOOK CLIENT TO RESOLVE.-We have an issue were we regularly send links to clients which go directly to a particular image in a gallery so they can see the image.eg.Going to the URL works as expected until you paste the link into the Outlook 2016 for mac email editor. Microsoft text editor mac default.

     HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftOffice11.0CommonOpen Find

     

5. After you select the key that is specified in step 4, point to New on the Edit menu, and then click DWORD Value.

6. Type EnableShellDataCaching, and then press ENTER.

7. Right-click EnableShellDataCaching, and then click Modify.

8. In the Value data box, type 1, and then click OK.

   Note

   Any non-zero number in the Value data box will turn on caching. A zero number or blank (default) will turn off caching.

9. On the File menu, click Exit to quit Registry Editor.

Did this fix the problem?

Check whether the problem is fixed. If the problem is fixed, you are finished with this section. If the problem is not fixed, you can contact support.

More information

This situation may occur after you click Open in the Open dialog box (on the File menu, click Open) to open a file from a network location (for example, a network server). During the process of opening the file, you lose your network connection or the network location that contains the file that you are trying to open goes down. During the process of opening the file, your Office program tries to add the file name and the path information of the file that you are trying to open to the Windows recent file list. Because the network location (path) does not now exist, the Office program may run slowly and may appear to stop responding (hang).

Microsoft Excel Slow To Open

Note

This situation may also occur if your connection to your network is slow because your Office program has to make multiple queries to the network to obtain the correct file information.

Microsoft Excel is a powerful program. So powerful, that it’s probably the most susceptible to have problems. I have troubleshot problems with Excel freezing and saying “Not Responding” in Windows. The reasons this happen can vary greatly. Here are the most common ways to fix the problem.

First, check to see if Excel is freezing in more than one spreadsheet. If Excel freezes in any file you open, it is likely related to the program itself. If it only happens in one file, you will have to pinpoint what exactly is causing the problem in that file.

Excel Freezes Every Time Used

If Excel freezes in every file. Try these steps.

Start Excel in Safe Mode

1. Close completely out of Excel.
2. Hold the Windows Key and press “R” to bring up the Run dialog box.
3. Type excel -safe then press “Enter“.
   If Excel opens with the above steps, it is likely that a plugin or other software is installed that is interfering with the software. Proceed with step 4 to try to fix the issue. If you still experience problems with Excel started in Safe Mode, try the next set of instructions.
4. Select “File” > “Options“.
5. Select “Add-ins“.
6. Select “Excel Add-ins” in the “Manage” drop-down menu, then select “Go…“.
7. If any items are checked, try unchecking them, then selecting “OK“. This will disable Add-ins that may be causing the freezing.
8. Close Excel, then launch it normally to see if that did the trick. If not, repeat steps 3 through 7, only try a different selection in step 6. Go through the list in the drop-down for “COM Add-ins“, “Actions“, and “XML Expansion Packs” and see if disabling items in those selections do the trick.

Reinstall Office

1. Right-click the “Start” button, then select “Control Panel“.
2. Select “Programs“.
3. Select “Uninstall a program“.
4. Locate “Microsoft Office” in the list. Right-click it, then choose “Change“.
5. Select “Quick Repair“, then click “Repair“.
6. Once the repair is complete. Try to launch Excel and see if you have a freezing problem. If the problem persists, try the “Online Repair” option.

Excel Freezes in Only One Spreadsheet

If the problem only occurs when only one spreadsheet file is open, there is something in the file causing the problem. Give these steps a try.

Clear Conditional Formatting

1. While you have the problematic file open in Excel, select “Home” > “Conditional Formatting” > “Clear Rules” > “Clear Rules From Entire Sheet“.
2. Select any additional tabs at the bottom of the sheet, and repeat step 1 on each of them.
3. Select “File” > “Save as” and make a new copy of the spreadsheet with a different name. The old one will exist if you need to revert to it due to lost data.

If you no longer experience freezing or slowness problems in the file, you will need to narrow down which section is causing the problem and reapply the conditional formatting.

Remove Styles

Download Remove Styles, then run the file. A button wlll then be available under the “Home” tab that says “Remove Styles“. Select it, and see if things speed up a bit.

Clear Objects (Shapes)

Excel Is Working Slow

Be careful with this solution if you wish to keep objects.

Why Is My Excel So Slow On Mac

1. Hold CTRL and press “G” to bring up the “Go To” box.
2. Select the “Special…” button.
3. From the “Go To Special” screen, select “Objects“, then select “OK“.
4. Press “Delete“.

Why Is Microsoft Excel So Slow On Mac Computer

Thanks to PeterS for this solution.