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
- Close completely out of Excel.
- Hold the Windows Key and press “R” to bring up the Run dialog box.
- Type
excel -safethen 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. - Select “File” > “Options“.
- Select “Add-ins“.
- Select “Excel Add-ins” in the “Manage” drop-down menu, then select “Go…“.
- If any items are checked, try unchecking them, then selecting “OK“. This will disable Add-ins that may be causing the freezing.
- 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
- Right-click the “Start” button, then select “Control Panel“.
- Select “Programs“.
- Select “Uninstall a program“.
- Locate “Microsoft Office” in the list. Right-click it, then choose “Change“.
- Select “Quick Repair“, then click “Repair“.
- 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
- While you have the problematic file open in Excel, select “Home” > “Conditional Formatting” > “Clear Rules” > “Clear Rules From Entire Sheet“.
- Select any additional tabs at the bottom of the sheet, and repeat step 1 on each of them.
- 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)
Be careful with this solution if you wish to keep objects.
- Hold CTRL and press “G” to bring up the “Go To” box.
- Select the “Special…” button.
- From the “Go To Special” screen, select “Objects“, then select “OK“.
- Press “Delete“.
Thanks to PeterS for this solution.
Andrea says
Yes, it worked! Did the safe mode instructions you suggested. I then went back into my excel invoices and was able to see whole page and could edit. Fingers crossed. I have Windows 10. On a Samsung laptop. Thank you!
ruth says
yey! it works for me. my excel works fine now when i disable the conditional formatting i can now encode smoothly with out excel freezing. thanks to this:)
Christoph says
Helped. Thanks very much for this very good posting!
Jason says
Excel is a two dimensional database.
the more you put into it, the slower it gets.
If on Windows 10,
I’ve had better luck downgrading to Office 2013 compared to using 2016
Robert Snyder says
I, along with hundreds of people I’ve found on the internet recently, are plagued by extremely slow processing times within Excel 2016. I am looking everywhere for help. Hopefully you can provide some insight.
I work within very large data sets/cubes, so processing time was already a bit of an annoyance when using 2013, but since I switched to 365/2016 last week it has been unbearable. My productivity has sunk drastically, as I now sometimes spend ~20-30 minutes waiting for a single pivot field to populate <1000 rows.
I have always had a penchant for Microsoft, but as an analyst I just cannot find this to be acceptable.
The only thing I've found that some people have had luck with is simply removing all filters before running calculations. Some people even go as far as disabling auto-calculation whenever they want to make an additional change to their file. Both of these are highly inconvenient, time-consuming, & unsustainable workarounds. And as for me, I would not even consider them to be an option while working in our larger data cubes.
Notes: My system is clean & performs extremely well in all aspects outside of Excel 2016 (HP EliteBook, i5, 64 bit, 16gb ram, ample local storage remaining, etc.). I rarely use conditional formatting, unless absolutely called-for. I have no add-ons active. I have no viruses affecting processing speeds. I truly don't believe the issue is stemming from my machine, but Excel 2016.
Please help in any way you can.
Roge says
Clearing Conditional Formatting (Home, Conditional Formatting, Clear Rules) fixed the issue for me as well
I don’t know how a Conditional Format haf been set, as I have never used CF
Jose Freitas Carvalho says
Didn’t help. The file opens fine on desktop iMac (running Windows) and on laptop Toshiba ultrabook.
It freezes on Surface, reason why I have to assume that the problem is hardware related. A big disappointment as I bought the Surface to replace the Toshiba and it is much worse.
Jens Anders Salberg says
Great tips :-) I had a small spreadsheet (< 1MB) that was slow even if saved on local drive. Removing conditional formatting solved the problem.
paul says
Thank you good info
Geoffrey Meadows says
As many others have said already, removing formats (including conditional formatting) solved the problem in my 2.9Gb workbook. The interesting thing was that I removed them only from the first worksheet (intending to work through all the 20 or so worksheets in turn) and that solved the problem. I then tried restoring a couple of the conditional formatting schemes which involved columns up to AH and rows down to 1200 and there was no issue. The workbook now functions as quickly as it ever did (that is, instantaneous), even though there is lots of conditional formatting and other formatting in the other worksheets.
Sorry to be so gabby!