How to Improve

Excel Performance

By Mynda Treacy
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Are your Excel files slow?

16
common causes of Excel
performance issues and
how to solve them

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Large Amounts
of Data

Too much data is one of the

most obvious causes of slow
Excel files, although this is
rarely the sole contributor.

Solution: Be diligent and only

store data in the file that is
required for the task.
Use Power Query to filter out
the unnecessary data before
loading it to the Excel file.

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 Duplicated Data
When data is used in a PivotTable it is typically stored in the file
twice, once in the worksheet and again in the Pivot Cache.
Solution: Use Power Query to get the data and load it direct to
the Pivot Cache by selecting ‘PivotTable Report’ in the Import
Data dialog box.

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Array Formulas

Single cell array formulas can be

processed several times, depending
on the number of cells referenced
in the formula.
Solutions:

• Avoid mixing row and column

references or overlapping array
references.
• Separate the calculation into
multiple cells rather than an
array formula.
• Move the calculation to Power
Query. Power Query only
calculates when you load the
data or refresh the data,
whereas formulas calculate
every time something they
reference changes, and in the
case of volatile functions, every
time ANYTHING changes.
Note: Modern dynamic array
functions are more efficient than
their older CTRL+SHIFT+ENTER
counterparts.

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 =IF(A1>B1,C1,IF(…,IF(…)))

Nested Formulas

Nested formulas in Excel, like nested IFs can cause performance

issues because they involve multiple levels of calculations that
require more processing power and memory.
Nested formulas can be especially problematic when they
involve large data sets, such as when performing lookups or
other operations across multiple worksheets or workbooks.
Solutions:
• Breaking down complex formulas into smaller, more
manageable parts can help improve performance and make
the worksheet easier to read and debug.
• Move the calculations to Power Query where they are
calculated once on loading the data, rather than multiple
times during the use of the file.
• Copy and paste the formulas as values if they are not
expected to change.

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 Volatile Functions
Volatile functions can cause performance issues because they
recalculate every time anything changes in the workbook, even if
the change has no direct impact on the function's output. Examples
of volatile functions include:
• INDIRECT • RANDBETWEEN
• OFFSET • TODAY
• NOW • CELL (depending on arguments)
• RAND • INFO (depending on arguments)
• RANDARRAY • SUMIF (when the size of the first range is
not the same as the second ‘sum_range’)
Solutions:
• Use volatile functions sparingly and only when necessary. If
possible, use non-volatile alternatives, such as INDEX instead of
OFFSET for dynamic named ranges.
• Switch to manual calculation mode. This way you only recalculate
the workbook when necessary.

CAUTION: don’t forget to manually calculate by pressing F9

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 Lookup Formulas
VLOOKUP | HLOOKUP | INDEX | XLOOKUP etc.

Lookup formulas can cause performance issues because they often

involve searching through large data sets, which can be time consuming
and resource intensive*.
Solutions:
• Use Power Query to perform lookups:
• Power Query lookup exact match
• Power Query lookup approximate match
• Power Query lookups using list functions
• If you must use a lookup formula, store the lookup table and the
formula on the same sheet.
• Avoid using exact match lookups where possible. Instead, use
approximate match with a sorted list.
• Be sure to only reference the cells containing the data being looked
up. Including empty rows in the formula will reduce efficiency.
* Office 365 users may not experience performance issues to the same
extent as those using earlier versions of Excel due to the new internal
cached index Excel creates for lookup functions.

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 Conditional Functions
Conditional functions in Excel can cause performance issues because
they involve testing each cell in a given range against a set of criteria,
which can be time consuming and resource intensive, especially for large
data sets.
Examples of conditional functions include SUMIF/S, COUNTIF/S,
AVERAGEIF/S, among others.
Note: as with the lookup functions, in Microsoft 365 these functions now
create an internal cached index for the range being searched. This cached
index is reused in any subsequent aggregations that are pulling from the
same range.
Solutions:
• Avoid selecting more cells than necessary
• Use a PivotTable instead. PivotTables can perform these calculations
and you don’t need to know how to write the formula.

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Defined Names
Defined names are recalculated each time a formula that refers
to the name is recalculated, even if the value of a cell does not
change when calculated.

Solution: defined names are one of the most valuable Excel

features, so don’t avoid them because they might cause
performance problems. Instead, check if any of the other causes
could be contributing and resolve them first. If you still have
performance problems, then try replacing names with direct
references to cells.

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 Handling Errors

The old IF(ISNA(VLOOKUP(…),0,VLOOKUP(…)) technique

requires Excel to do double the work i.e. two lookups.
Solution: Instead, use the IFERROR or IFNA function to
handle errors returned by lookup functions.
=IFNA(VLOOKUP(…),0)
=IFERROR(INDEX(…),"")

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 External Links

As a general rule, external links should be avoided. Links to

external Excel files are slow to calculate and easily broken.
Plus, many functions cannot evaluate on a closed workbook.
Internal links can also slow down calculation.
Solution: Use Power Query to bring the data into the current
file. If you must use external links, open the file being linked
to before opening the file doing the linking.

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 Excessive Formatting

Excessive cell formatting, including font styles, colors,

borders, and other visual attributes that are applied to
cells can consume a significant amount of processing
power and memory, especially when applied to large data
sets.
Excessive formatting can also make the file size larger,
which can slow down the loading and saving times of the
workbook.
Solution: instead of applying formatting like cell fill colour
to a large range of cells, apply it to the whole column/row.
It’s easier for Excel to know that a whole row or column is
formatted in a particular way than it is to keep track of
1000 separate cells.

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 Redundant Formatting

Redundant formatting (used range) can sometimes linger in

cells unbeknownst to you. Cells can appear empty, but Excel
is still storing information about those cells in memory.
CTRL+END will take you to the last cell in the sheet that Excel
is storing information for. If this isn’t the end of your table,
then you know you have redundant formatting.
In the image below, Excel thinks the last used cell is S337, but
there is no data in the cells to the left or above. See next
page for the solution.

EMPTY CELLS Excel thinks

this is the last
used cell

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 Redundant Formatting Solution

Solution: you can try deleting rows and columns that are
empty, but I have found this often doesn’t resolve the
problem (backup the file before you do).

Use the new Optimize Sheet tool available in Excel Online for
Microsoft 365 to check for performance issues. It’s available
on the Review tab of the ribbon:

Excel Online

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Redundant Formatting Solution

Clicking on ‘Check Performance’ brings up the Workbook

Performance pane which summarises the sheets that contain
any issues. From there you can see a list of the individual
cells/ranges and the issues (see image below). Clicking
Optimise all/sheet will remove them for you.

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Excel Tables
(2013 Only)

Storing large amounts of data in Excel Tables in Excel 2013

and earlier can sometimes yield worse performance than not
formatting it in a table. An unofficial cut off is >500k rows x
10 columns. This is sometimes too much to store in Excel
2013 Tables, although it can depend on whether you have a
lot of formulas or not.
Solution: If the file is slow, consider storing the data in the
Power Pivot data model rather than the worksheet. Power
Pivot has an advanced compression algorithm that enables it
to store data more efficiently than Excel itself. Power Pivot
can also store 10’s of millions of rows of data and overcome
the row limitations of Excel.

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 Password Protected Structure

Files with password protected workbook structures will be

slower to open and close than one without a password.
Solution: Given that Excel passwords can be removed easily,
consider whether the password is worth the performance hit.

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 User Defined Functions (UDFs)

UDFs are typically less efficient than the

built in Excel functions.
Solution: consider using the built in
functions, breaking them into separate
calculations if required. Or write a custom
function with the new LAMBDA function.

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Microsoft 365 is 250% Faster*
than earlier Excel versions!

Outdated Software
Many improvements to Excel’s calc engine were released for Office
365 users for SUMIFS, AVERAGEIFS, COUNTIFS, MAXIFS, MINIFS, and
their singular counterparts as well as VLOOKUP, HLOOKUP and
MATCH functions.
*The improvement is dramatic: for example, calculating 1200
SUMIFS, AVERAGEIFS, and COUNTIFS formulas aggregating data from
1 million cells on a 4 core 2 GHz CPU that took 20 seconds to
calculate using Excel 2010, now only takes 8 seconds, in Excel M365.
Solution: where possible update to Microsoft 365 to take advantage
of new improved functions and calc efficiencies. Also use the 64-bit
version of Excel. The 32-bit version that is commonly used for
compatibility with old add-ins only has 2GBs of virtual memory.

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Mynda Treacy | Microsoft MVP