How to Work on Large Excel Files Without Crashing (5-Step Guide)

How's your experience in working on a large Excel file in Windows 10, like ~10MB? In fact, accountants, for example, produce Excel files in much bigger sizes than 10MB. Some people noticed that large files are likely to cause a crash in Excel. Is the file size responsible for the crash? 

As a matter of fact, big file sizes are not the real culprits for the Excel crashing issue. It's said that unstable, crashing, or freezing workbooks only tend to happen when your spreadsheets have grown to at least 20MB in size, given how much processing power modern computers have. Hence, you should consider other factors that crash Excel when the file you're working on is far less than 20MB in size.

Why Large Excel Files Crash

Except for the fact that the Excel file is really large, over 20MB, chances are that other factors make your Excel unsteady to use. The factors are basically as follows:

• Formatting, styles, and shapes in a worksheet
• Calculations and formulas in a worksheet
• Computer's RAM issue

How to Repair Corrupted Large Excel Files [First-Aid]

Before figuring out how to stop large Excel files from crashing, you need to know how to repair them so that you can compensate for the damage to the greatest extent. How can you fix damaged Excel in time? Try a professional file repair tool - EaseUS Fixo Document Repair. This advanced file repair tool resolves Excel file corruption and restores the .XLS/.XLSX file data. It fixes all types of Excel corruption errors, such as unrecognizable format, unreadable content, Excel runtime errors, etc. 

With this file repair tool, you can:

• Repair corrupted Excel with tables, images, charts, formulas, etc.
• Repair multiple .XLS and .XLSX at one time
• Fix damaged Excel files in 2019, 2016, 2013, 2010, 2007, 2003, and 2000

To repair an inaccessible large Excel file, follow the guides below. EaseUS Fixo also helps you repair corrupted Word, PowerPoint, and PDF documents. 

Step 1. Download and launch Fixo on your PC or laptop. Choose "File Repair" to repair corrupted Office documents, including Word, Excel, PDF, and others. Click "Add Files" to select corrupted documents.

Step 2. To repair multiple files at once, click the "Repair All" button. If you want to repair a single document, move your pointer to the target file and choose "Repair". You can also preview the documents by clicking the eye icon.

Step 3. Click "Save" to save a selected document. Select "Save All" to save all the repaired files. Choose "View Repaired" to locate the repaired folder.

How to Work with Large Excel Files Without Crash (5 Ways)

Next, we're going to troubleshoot a slow workbook upon opening or editing in Excel around the discussed three factors. No matter it's a small or big Excel file since it causes a crashing issue in Excel, the given solutions in each section should help.

Step 1. Remove Excessive Formatting

Formatting cells on your worksheet can make the right information easy to see at a glance, but formatting cells that aren't being used (especially entire rows and columns) can cause your workbook's file size to grow quickly. Microsoft has its own add-on called Clean Excess Cell Formatting, which is available on Excel's Inquire tab in Microsoft Office 365 and Office Professional Plus 2013. If you don't see the Inquire tab in Excel, do the following to enable the Inquire add-in:

• Click File > Options > Add-Ins.
• Make sure COM Add-ins is selected in the Manage box, and click Go.

• In the COM Add-Ins box, check Inquire, and then click OK. The Inquire tab should now be visible in the ribbon.

To remove the excess formatting in the current worksheet, do the following:

• On the Inquire tab, click Clean Excess Cell Formatting.

• Choose whether to clean only the active worksheet or all worksheets. After excess formatting has been cleared, click Yes to save changes to the sheets or No to cancel.

Step 2. Remove Unused Styles

Too many different styles on an Excel workbook are likely to cause a specific error of "Too many different cell formats", and the alongside symptom is a constant crash in Excel. Hence, you should avoid using multiple styles on one worksheet. To clean up workbooks that already contain several styles, you can use one of the following third-party tools suggested by Microsoft.

• Excel formats (xlsx, xlsm) - XLStyles Tool.
• Binary Excel formats (xls, xlsb), workbooks protected by a password, and encrypted workbooks - Remove Styles Add-in.

Step 3. Remove Conditional Formatting

• Under Home, click Conditional Formatting.
• Choose Clear Rules.
• Select Clear Rules from Entire Sheet
• If multiple sheets adopt the rule, repeat the steps to clear them all

Step 4. Remove Calculations and Formulas

If you've gone through the above three-step check and removed unnecessary cell formatting, styles, and conditional formatting but still work clumsily on a large Excel workbook, you may need to look at the formulas and calculations in your worksheet. You don't have to check every calculation and formula you've applied in the file, but those primary ones tend to eat a lot of your computer's resources.

• Formulas that reference entire rows or columns
• SUMIF, COUNTIF, and SUMPRODUCT
• A large number of formulas
• Volatile functions
• Array formulas

Step 5. Examine the Computer RAM Issue

Last but not the least, if none of the four-step efforts speed up the performance in working on a large Excel file in Windows 10, it may be an issue with your computer's memory. Follow the 10 tips on how to solve high RAM memory usage issue in Windows 10.

Conclusion 

This article covers the common solutions to opening large Excel files without crashing or fixing Excel's non-responsiveness to large data issues. You can take the most effective way to work with large Excel files. If your Excel files are broken, use EaseUS file repair software to restore them to intact files.