Microsoft Office Takes Forever To Open Mac

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Nov 18, 2019  Describes performance issues that occur when you use Outlook in an Office 365 environment. Specifically, Outlook performs slowly when you open email messages, and mail sits for a long time in the Outbox after you send it. A resolution is provided. 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. Why do Microsoft office Apps take an excruciating amount of time to open up? I have the late 2013 macbook model, with 16gb of ram installed and it still takes a considerable amount of time to open up Excel, Word, Powerpoint, OneNote. Why's this I have another 100gb of harddrive space left.

Note

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

Symptoms

After you upgrade to Microsoft Office 2013/2016/Office 365, you experience one or more of the following symptoms:

  • The computer uses more memory when you open multiple Microsoft Excel 2013 workbooks, save Excel workbooks, or make calculations in Excel workbooks.

  • You can no longer open as many Excel workbooks in the same instance as you could before you upgraded to Excel 2013/2016.

  • When you insert columns in an Excel workbook, you receive an error about available memory.

  • When you are working with an Excel spreadsheet, you receive the following error message:

Cause

Starting in Excel 2013, improvements were made that require more system resources than earlier versions required. This article identifies areas in Excel workbooks that use lots of memory and describes how you can make your workbook files work more efficiently.

For more information about the changes that we made in Excel 2013, see Memory Usage in the 32-bit edition of Excel 2013.

Resolution

To resolve this issue, use the following methods in the order in which they are presented. If the one of these methods does not help, move on to the next method.

Note

Many Excel workbooks have several issues that can problems. After you eliminate these issues, your workbook will run more smoothly.

Formatting considerations

Formatting can cause Excel workbooks to become so large that they do not work correctly. Frequently, Excel hangs or crashes because of formatting issues.

Method 1: Eliminate excessive formatting

Excessive formatting in an Excel workbook can cause the file to grow and can cause poor performance. Formatting would be considered excessive if you formatted whole columns or rows with color or borders. This problem also occurs when formatting requires data to be copied or imported from webpages or databases. To eliminate excess formatting, use the format cleaner add-in that is available in Clean excess cell formatting on a worksheet.

If you continue to experience issues after you eliminate excess formatting, move on to method 2.

Microsoft office takes forever to open mac file

Method 2: Remove unused styles

You can use styles to standardize the formats that you use throughout workbooks. When cells are copied from one workbook to another, their styles are also copied. These styles continue to make the file grow and may eventually cause the 'Too many different cell formats' error message in Excel when you save back to older file versions.

Many utilities are available that remove unused styles. As long as you are using an XML-based Excel workbook (that is, an .xlsx file or an. xlsm file), you can use the style cleaner tool. You can find this tool here.

If you continue to experience issues after you remove any unused styles, move on to method 3.

Method 3: Remove shapes

Adding lots of shapes in a spreadsheet also requires lots of memory. A shape is defined as any object that sits on the Excel grid. Some examples are as follows:

  • Charts
  • Drawing shapes
  • Comments
  • Clip art
  • SmartArt
  • Pictures
  • WordArt

Frequently, these objects are copied from webpages or other worksheets and are hidden or are sitting on one another. Frequently, the user is unaware that they are present.

To check for shapes, follow these steps:

  1. On the Home Ribbon, click Find and Select, and then click Selection Pane.
  2. Click The Shapes on this Sheet. Shapes are displayed in the list.
  3. Remove any unwanted shapes. (The eye icon indicates whether the shape is visible.)
  4. Repeat steps 1 through 3 for each worksheet.

If you continue to experience issues after you remove shapes, you should examine considerations that are not related to formatting.

Method 4: Remove conditional formatting

Conditional formatting can cause the file to grow. This occurs when the conditional formatting in the file is corrupted. You can remove the conditional formatting, as a test to see if the problem is with corruption in the formatting. To remove conditional formatting, follow these steps:

  1. Save a backup of the file.
  2. On the Home Ribbon, click Conditional Formatting.
  3. Clear rules from the whole worksheet.
  4. Follow steps 2 and 3 for each worksheet in the workbook.
  5. Save the workbook by using a different name.
  6. See if the problem is resolved.

If removing conditional formatting resolves the issue, you can open the original workbook, remove conditional formatting, and then reapply it.

Problem remains?

If none of these methods work, you may consider moving to a 64-bit version of Excel, breaking your problem workbook into different workbooks, or contacting Support for additional troubleshooting.

Calculation considerations

In addition to formatting, calculations can also cause crashing and hanging in Excel.

Method 1: Open the workbook in the latest version of Excel

Opening an Excel workbook for the first time in a new version of Excel may take a long time if the workbook contains lots of calculations. To open the workbook for the first time, Excel has to recalculate the workbook and verify the values in the workbook. For more information, see the following articles:

If the file continues to open slowly after Excel recalculates the file completely and you save the file, move on to method 2.

Method 2: Formulas

Look through your workbook and examine the kinds of formulas that you are using. Some formulas take lots of memory. These include the following array formulas:

  • LOOKUP
  • INDIRECT
  • OFFSETS
  • INDEX
  • MATCH

It's fine to use them. However, be aware of the ranges that you are referencing.

Formulas that reference whole columns could cause poor performance in .xlsx files. The grid size grew from 65,536 rows to 1,048,576 rows and from 256 (IV) columns to 16,384 (XFD) columns. A popular way to create formulas, although not a best practice, was to reference whole columns. If you were referencing just one column in the old version, you were including only 65,536 cells. In the new version, you're referencing more than 1 million columns.

Assume that you have the following VLOOKUP:

In Excel 2003 and earlier versions, this VLOOKUP was referencing a whole row that included only 655,560 cells (10 columns x 65,536 rows). However, with the new, larger grid, the same formula references almost 10.5 million cells (10 columns x 1,048,576 rows = 10,485,760).

This is fixed in Office 2016/365 version 1708 16.0.8431.2079 and later. For information on how to update Office, please see Install Office updates.

For earlier versions of Office you may need to reconstruct your formulas to reference only those cells that are required for your formulas.

Note

Check your defined names to make sure that you don't have other formulas that reference whole columns or rows.

Note

This scenario will also occur if you use whole rows.

If you continue experience issues after you change your formulas to refer only to cells that are being used, move on to method 3.

Method 3: Calculating across workbooks

Limit the formulas that are doing the calculations across workbooks. This is important for two reasons:

  • You are trying to open the file over the network.
  • Excel is trying to calculate large amounts of data.

Instead of doing calculations across networks, contain the formula in one workbook, and then create a simple link from one workbook to another.

If you continue to experience the issue after you change your formulas to refer only to cells instead of calculating across workbooks, move on to method 4.

Method 4: Volatile functions

Limit the use of the volatile functions in a workbook. You do not have to have hundreds of cells that use the TODAY or NOW function. If you have to have the current date and time in your spreadsheet, use the function one time, and then reference the function through a defined name of a link.

If you continue to experience the issue after you limit your volatile formulas, move on to method 5.

Method 5: Array formulas

Array formulas are powerful. But they must be used correctly. It is important not to add more cells to your array than you must have. When a cell in your array has a formula that requires calculation, calculation occurs for all cells that are referenced in that formula.

For more information about how arrays work, please see Excel 2010 Performance: Tips for Optimizing Performance Obstructions.

If you continue to experience the issue after you update your array formulas, move on to method 6.

Method 6: Defined names

Defined names are used to reference cells and formulas throughout the workbook to add a 'friendly name' to your formulas. You should check for any defined names that link to other workbooks or temporary Internet files. Typically, these links are unnecessary and slow down the opening of an Excel workbook.

You can use the Name Manager tool to view hidden defined names that you can't see in the Excel interface. This tool enables you to view and delete the defined names that you don't need.

If Excel continues to crash and hang after you remove any unnecessary defined names, move on to method 7.

Method 7: Links and hyperlinks

Excel's power is in its ability to bring in live data from other spreadsheets. Take an inventory of the file and the external files to which it is linking. Excel doesn't have a limit on how many Excel workbooks can be linked, although there are several issues that you can encounter. Test the file without the links to determine whether the issue is in this file or in one of the linked files.

Moving on

These are the most common issues that cause hanging and crashing in Excel. If you are still experiencing crashing and hanging in Excel, you should consider opening a support ticket with Microsoft.

More Information

If none of these methods made a difference, you should consider either moving to a 64-bit version of Excel or breaking your problem workbook into different workbooks.

Is there anything more frustrating than typing lag or slow-loading documents when you’re on a deadline? While Microsoft Office is one of the most widely used application suites for all kinds of projects in the modern office, it doesn't always show excellent performance.

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. If Marie Kondo has taught us anything, it’s that clutter can cause unnecessary stress in life. And this applies to hard drives as well!

Why is Microsoft Office slow?

While there are a few different symptoms indicating that Microsoft Office isn’t doing its best, such as a painfully slow opening of a program or Microsoft Word slow typing, the question stands: why is Microsoft Word so slow?

There are a variety of reasons Microsoft Office may run slowly, freeze, or cause the much dreaded typing lag. Often, the issue stems from a build-up of corrupted or temporary files that are meant to be automatically deleted but, for whatever reason, have failed to do so. The application suite could also be out of date or attempt to load corrupted files. Very likely it’s just a large number of small problems that have snowballed and are now causing noticeable issues. Here’s how you can fix it.

Refresh go-to templates

The template file normal.dot is created by Microsoft Word and stored automatically on your computer. It saves all the default settings of the application. So each time you change your settings, the preference is added to normal.dot. This way, the next time Microsoft Word opens a new document, your preferred settings load automatically. If your normal.dot file becomes corrupted or too complex to load, it can make Microsoft Word slow.

Deleting the existing normal.dot file will force Microsoft Word to create a new one. Starting fresh will be easy for most users, as the majority of us don’t stray too far from the default settings. For those that change their default settings in complex ways, make sure you back up your normal.dot files to a flash drive to avoid losing important settings permanently.

To find and delete normal.dot manually:

  1. Quit MS Word and open Finder.
  2. Type normal.dot into the search field.
  3. Wait for all results to load. It’s not uncommon to have more than one normal.dot file. They may also appear as normal.dotm.
  4. Select all normal.dot and normal.dotm files and delete them.
  5. Empty your Trash.

Finally, reload the application and see if the process has managed to speed up Microsoft Word.

Microsoft office takes forever to open mac free

Delete temporary files

All Microsoft Office programs will create temporary files to prevent you from losing your work. However, if the automatic removal of these files fails, they can build up and make Microsoft Office slow.

You can easily seek out and remove these files:

  1. Determine which temporary files you want to delete. Microsoft’s website lists different types of temporary files that Microsoft Office produces automatically. Likely the files you are looking for will be searchable using the trine sign ~*.doc, ~*.dot or ~*.tmp.
  2. Use Finder to search for files with ~*.doc or another marker.
  3. Select files to delete.
  4. Drag them to the Trash and empty it.

Once you are done, reload the application to see if that did speed up Microsoft Word.

Keep Microsoft Office updated

Having an outdated version of Microsoft Office will eventually cause it to run slowly. Luckily, updating the suite is very easy:

  1. Open Microsoft Word.
  2. In the top tool-bar, select Help and click “Check for Updates.”
  3. Install the update if detected.

Additionally, you can turn on Microsoft auto-updates using the same dialogue box, so that whenever Microsoft Office detects a new version it will offer you an opportunity to install it.

Another way to update Microsoft Office is to directly download the latest one from the Microsoft website. But before you do, check that it’s fully compatible with your version of macOS.

Reset the application to default settings

Over time, all Mac apps accumulate lots of unneeded preferences that constantly rewrite each other. A good way to rule out that there’s anything wrong with the app is to do a factory reset — bring the app back to the state when it was brand new.

You can do a factory reset in two ways:

  1. Go to Finder and search for ~/Library
  2. Look for Microsoft Office files in the results
  3. Delete all of them but the app itself

Alternatively, you can do the same thing quicker and more thoroughly with the CleanMyMac X uninstaller utility:

  1. Download CleanMyMac X with a free trial.
  2. Go to Uninstaller tab.
  3. Select Microsoft Office and choose Reset.
  4. Click on the Reset button.

Delete and reinstall Microsoft Office

The old IT adage “have you tried turning it off and back on?” applies here, but in this case, it’s about deleting the application and reinstalling it. To completely delete Microsoft Office, you will need to remove files from two different places on your computer: delete the app first and then find your Library folder in Finder to see the associated files that need to be removed.

  1. Head to the Applications folder and move Microsoft Office to the Trash
  2. Find your Library folder in Finder by navigating to your computer in Locations and then clicking on your hard-drive (e.g. Macintosh HD)
  3. Open System then Library, and find the folder Containers
  4. From Containers, move the following associated files to the Trash:
    • com.microsoft.errorreporting
    • com.microsoft.Excel
    • com.microsoft.netlib.shipassertprocess
    • com.microsoft.Office365ServiceV2
    • com.microsoft.Outlook
    • com.microsoft.Powerpoint
    • com.microsoft.RMS-XPCService
    • com.microsoft.Word
    • com.microsoft.onenote.mac
  5. Open Group Containers folder as well and remove the following files:
    • UBF8T346G9.ms
    • UBF8T346G9.Office
    • UBF8T346G9.OfficeOsfWebHost
  6. Finally, remove Microsoft Office from the Dock and restart your Mac.

Once removed, head back to the Microsoft website, sign in to your account, and install the latest version.

Optimize documents for storage

Keeping Microsoft Office functioning properly means saving documents in their most optimized state. Resizing large images or graphics and not overloading your files with macros will help you maintain speedy performance in the long run.

Microsoft Office Takes Forever To Open Mac Computer

Speed up Microsoft Office automatically in minutes

While all the above maintenance will help you speed up Microsoft Office, it can be time-consuming and finicky. Troubleshooting your app version, deleting and refreshing templates, and searching for temporary files is all manual work and could eat up a few hours.

To make things easy, you can use optimization software like CleanMyMac X, which will automatically detect and remove temporary as well as unused files to get your Microsoft Office running smoothly. Here’s how to do it:

Microsoft Office Takes Forever To Open Mac Drive

  1. Download CleanMyMac X.
  2. Drag it into your Applications folder.
  3. Open it and run a general Smart Scan to start.
  4. Then run Optimization and Maintenance scans (which you can choose from the left-side panel) to target specific areas, such as freeing up RAM and reviewing your login items
  5. Repeat the process every month or so.

While following the above method of optimizing your Mac with CleanMyMac X is enough to remove any unnecessary clutter, the app’s sidebar menu offers even more options for increasing the speed of your Mac as well as a handy uninstaller for quick and thorough uninstallations of apps you don’t need anymore.

Unable To Open Microsoft Office

Microsoft teams mac screen sharing. Ultimately, there are a number of ways to get Microsoft Office to run smoothly again. And although it’s entirely possible to do most of the cleanup manually, using an app like CleanMyMac X is a much faster and easier way to get rid of junk and ensure that your Mac is performing at top speed.