I love Microsoft Windows 10 but one thing that was really getting on my nerves was that Excel was taking ages to open and save files. I also noticed that even when trying to add a formula, Excel would ‘freeze’ for awhile and would display the message Not Responding.
What causes the slow performance of Excel?
There seems to be some sort of conflict between Cortana and Excel. I don’t use Cortana as I prefer the various Google tools so the steps as below have no negative outcomes for me. I also seem to be using Google Sheets alot more these days but I still use Excel for large data-sets (e.g. when working with large lists of Mailchimp subscriber data).
Although I use Excel 2016, the steps below should work for other versions too.
Instructions to solve Excel being slow in Windows 10
I found the solution on the web however can’t find the link to the fix. Below are the steps that worked for me in speeding up Excel.
- Log in to Windows 10.
- On your keyboard press the Windows key + I (to get to Settings).
- Type Cortana.
- Click Cortana and Search settings.
- Change the Hey Cortana setting to Off.
- Restart your PC.
Excel will now run far more quickly.
Great Post thanks for sharing this. i am facing same problem with Microsoft Excel and was looking for an solution. This post is a saviour for me.
Not the only problem, since I”m having the slowness issues and Hey Cortana is already off.
Same problem for me and also no Cortana. Seems like this issue has been going for some while…..good old Microsoft
I am so frustrated with excel and windows 10. Makes it virtually unusable and Cortana is off.
I’ve had this problem for a long time and tried everything that’s been suggested. After rereading this thread and some other threads, I tried logging out of my Microsoft account and since then every file has been opening with no delay. Who knows if this will last, but it seems more concrete than anything else I have tried before. It aligns with the behavior I’ve experienced where sometimes if I was on the hard wire network in the office it would be slow and if I unplugged and went on the wireless network it would be better, or vice versa. Maybe each time Excel was opening it was first checking my online credentials and if there were network delays Excel waited until it got a response? I haven’t had a single delay in opening an Excel file since logging out of Microsoft two days ago. I think I’m able to declare victory!
I experience this issue and have already set “Hey Cortana” to off. So this isn’t a fix for me.
I even don’t have Cortana installed. But it takes minutes for windows to open an excel file. This file is around 40MB. Let alone adding columns or rows. But previously, windows 7 just worked fine. I don’t know if I should go back to windows 7.
Yeah, I’m wondering if I can upgrade from Win10 to Win7…
On Win7 I could have up to 100 tabs open (no exaggeration) in Chrome, 7-10 Word docs open, 5-6 Excel apps open, 30,000 rows in many of them, and 50 or more Explorer windows open. The system was snappy (HP Z820 w/2CPU and 32 cores, 2.6GHz) workstation. The same system crawls when I get 10 Chrome tabs open, and any more than a couple other apps running. Task manager shows that the System tasks is taking 25% of time alone, and Chrome can take 40%. My CPU utilization is oftem >90% and sometimes 100%.
I have tried DOZENS of Win10 speed-up tricks.
This is not a usable OS. What a joke. Time to bite the bullet and go to Linux. I used to love Excel…