How can I resolve an Excel crash issue?

8 min readMay 16, 2024

This article discusses some common Excel crash issues. This article also addresses issues with Microsoft Excel, including instances where Excel fails to respond or freezes when you open a workbook or launch MS Excel on your PC. Additionally,, it outlines solutions to help you resolve the Excel crash issue and other Excel errors.

Microsoft Excel may stop responding, hang, freeze, or stop working for a variety of reasons, such as compatible add-ins. In such a situation, you may receive one of the following error messages:

Excel has stopped functioning.
Excel is not responding.
A problem caused the program to stop working correctly. Windows will close the program and notify you if a solution is available.

Why does Excel keep crashing?

If Excel keeps crashing on your PC while opening a workbook, saving an Excel file, scrolling or editing cells, etc., it indicates a problem with your Excel program or the Excel file.

Microsoft Excel may crash for one or more of the following reasons:

Incompatible Add-Ins
The outdated MS Excel program
Conflicts with other programs or antivirus tools can occur.
Third-party software created the Excel file.
There is a network problem.
Combination of cell formatting and styling’s
Problems with MS Office installation
A partially damaged or corrupt Excel file

An Excel crash issue is causing problems.

A Microsoft Excel crash can damage the Excel file and corrupt Excel (XLS/XLSX) files.

The MS Excel app cannot open or access such corrupt Excel files. If you try to access a corrupt Excel file, MS Excel may fail to open the file, stop responding, and crash. Additionally, you may receive the following or similar error messages:

In such a case, you should immediately try to recover the Excel file. You may do so by restoring the Excel file from backup or by using BLR Excel File Repair software. Otherwise, continue following this guide.

How do I resolve an Excel crash issue?

Before heading to solutions, follow these troubleshooting steps to resolve the Excel crash issue.

Step 1: Copy the file to the local drive. local drive.

If you are trying to access, edit, or view an Excel file from a network drive, try moving the file to a local drive. This will help you find out if there is something wrong with the file or the network.

Step 2: Ensure Sufficient Memory

Excel files can grow fairly large when you start adding lots of formatting and shapes. Make sure that your system has enough RAM to run the application.

If you often work with large Excel files and complex data values and formulas, then install 64-bit versions of MS Office. It will give you the advantage of larger processing capacities and prevent Excel from crashing or freezing.

Step 3: Verify if another process is using Excel while it’s open.

Open Task Manager and close all processes or apps (tasks) that may be using or have access to your Excel file that you are working on. The Excel program’s status bar at the bottom of the window contains this information.

After closing the tasks, try to access the Excel file and check if this fixes the performance and crash problems in Excel.

Step 4: Test and Repair an Excel File

Create a copy of the Excel file and install BLR Tools Repair for Excel software. It’s free to download. The software allows you to scan and repair your Excel file. After repair, save the Excel file at your desired location, and then open the Excel file in the MS Excel program.

This should ideally fix all the issues with Excel.

However, if the Excel program still crashes, the problem lies within the system or program. Follow the solutions discussed in this guide to try to fix the Excel crash issue.

NOTE: To save a repaired Excel file using the mentioned software, you must purchase the activation key and activate it.

There are several ways to fix the MS Excel crash issue.

The following are some solutions for resolving issues with MS Excel:

Excel is not responding. responding.
Excel won’t open.
Excel keeps crashing. crashing.

Follow these solutions in the given order. In case a method doesn’t work, move on to the next one.

Solution 1: Restart Excel in Safe Mode.

By starting MS Excel in safe mode, you can run the program without loading the Excel add-ins and with limited features. But COM add-ins are excluded.

To launch Excel in safe mode, close MS Excel and follow these steps:

Create a shortcut to MS Excel (.exe) on the desktop. the desktop.
When launching the program, press and hold the Ctrl program key.
Click ‘Yes’ when a prompt appears to confirm. confirm.

Alternatively, you can press Windows+R, /safe, type excel/safe, and then press ‘Enter’. Use this to open Excel in safe mode on Windows 10, 8.1, 8, or 7 systems.

Now, try opening and accessing the Excel file to verify the issue’s resolution. If it’s not, head on to the next solution.

Solution 2: Check and remove faulty add-ins.

In the event that Excel doesn’t crash in Safe Mode, it’s possible that some faulty add-ins are the culprit behind frequent Excel crashes and freezes. freezes. These Excel add-ins may interfere with or conflict with the Excel program.

Find and remove the faulty add-in. It can resolve the issue. To do so, follow these steps:

Restart Excel in normal mode and navigate to File -> Options -> Add-ins. Add-ins.
Choose COM Add-ins from the drop-down and click Go. Go.
Uncheck all the checkboxes and click OK. OK.
Restart Excel and confirm the problem’s resolution.
If Excel doesn’t crash or freeze anymore, open COM Add-ins and enable one add-in at a time, followed by an Excel restart. Then, check Excel for freeze or crash issues. problems.

This will help you find out the faulty add-in that is causing the problem. To resolve the issue, remove the add-in that is causing the problem. If that doesn’t fix it, move on to the next solution.

Solution 3: Check and install the latest updates.

If you haven’t set Windows to download and install updates automatically, do it now.

Apart from updating the operating system, the latest Windows updates sometimes fix bugs for other applications installed on the system, such as MS Office. Often, installing an important update that you might have missed may correct the Excel crash problem.

You can also update MS Office manually. Follow these steps:

Go to File > Account.

Under Product Information, select Update Options, and click Update Now.

If you have installed MS Excel from the Microsoft Store, open the store and update your Office applications.

Note: This also works if you can’t open an Excel file or if Excel crashes after upgrading from Windows 7 or Windows 8/8.1 to Windows 10.

After installing the latest MS Office updates, check if Excel works fine. If not, head to the next solution.

Solution 4: Clear Conditional Formatting Rules

If a sheet causes Excel to freeze or crash, there may be a problem with that particular sheet. In such a case, you may try clearing the conditional formatting rules. The steps are as follows:

Under Home, click ‘Conditional Formatting > Clear Rules> Clear Rules from Entire Sheet’.
You may repeat this step for all other sheets in the Excel workbook.
Next, select File>Save as, which will save the sheet as a new file in a different location.

This avoids overwriting or making changes to the original Excel file. Once done, try working on the sheet.

If this doesn’t work out, move on to the next solution.

Solution 5: Remove multiple cell formatting and styles.

Sharing and editing a workbook on different platforms may result in many cells having different formats. This can cause issues with Excel, such as crashes and freezes. It can also lead to Excel file corruption. The problem mostly occurs when a workbook contains multiple worksheets using different formatting.

You can follow this guide to remove different cell formats and styles, and then open the Excel file.

Solution 6: Disable Microsoft Excel Animation

Animations require additional processing power and resources. By disabling animations in Excel, you may be able to resolve the freeze and crash issues. This also improves MS Excel performance.

To disable the animations in MS Excel, follow these steps:

Go to File > Options.
Click ‘Advanced’ and check ‘Disable hardware graphics acceleration’ animation.
Click ‘OK’ to close the window, and then restart MS Excel.

This has helped many users fix the Excel crash issue. If it doesn’t work for you, head to the next solution.

Solution 7: Verify whether a third-party application generated the Excel file.

You may have used applications to generate Excel files and fetch data. For instance, you may have downloaded data in Excel format from Google Analytics.

Such third-party apps exist. As a result, some Excel features may not work as intended when you access the files in MS Excel.

If this is the case, you should contact the app developer for assistance with the file, or use BLR Tools for Excel to repair such Excel files.

Also read: How to Avoid Excel Crashing While Working with Huge Excel Files

Solution 8: Check if antivirus or other apps are conflicting with MS Excel.

Ensure your antivirus is up-to-date and not conflicting with MS Excel. An outdated antivirus tool may conflict with Excel, which can cause the application to hang, freeze, or crash.

Update your antivirus.
Try disabling the add-in or integration between Excel and antivirus. See if it works.

Alternatively, you may disable the anti-virus tool temporarily to check if it is the culprit behind the Excel performance issue and crash. If that resolves the issue, contact your antivirus vendor and report it.

They might be able to provide you with a better solution or workaround to fix this problem without disabling antivirus protection.

Important Note: Disabling or altering antivirus protection makes your PC vulnerable to malicious attacks and virus or malware intrusions.

Solution 9: Clean Boot Windows to Inspect the Cause Behind Excel Crash

When Windows boots, it automatically initiates several processes, services, and applications that run in the background.

These start-up apps and services can interfere with other applications, such as MS Excel. You can perform a clean boot to determine if that’s the cause of the Excel crash.

This helps you identify processes, services, or applications that are in conflict with Excel. The following are the steps for performing Clean Boot:

Press Windows key + R, type MS Configuration, and press ‘Enter’.
In the System Configuration window, click on the General tab and choose Selective Startup.

Uncheck ‘Load start-up items’ and click ‘OK’.

After this, close all running applications and restart your PC.

Ensure the resolution of the Excel crash issue. Uninstall the conflicting apps or update them. If the issue remains unresolved, proceed to the next solution.

Solution 10: Repair or Reinstall MS Office

If damaged MS Excel programs or MS Office files are the cause of the Excel crash issues, repairing Office programs may also resolve them. The steps are as follows:

Close all MS Office apps and open the Control Panel.
Click Uninstall a Program under Programs.
Click on Microsoft Office, and then click on the Change option.
Select ‘Quick Repair’, followed by ‘Repair’.
Click ‘Continue’ to repair the MS Office installation.

You may also try ‘Online Repair’ if this fails to fix the issue. After repair, if the Excel issue persists, reinstall MS Office.

Need more help?

If none of the above-mentioned solutions worked for you, it indicates that the problem is not with the Excel program but with the Excel file. If you haven’t tried the BLR Tools Repair for Excel software, do it now.

Select the Excel file that is causing the problem and repair it with the software. It’s a powerful Excel repair software that can fix all the problems with Excel files (XLS/XLSX). It repairs corrupted and severely damaged Excel files.

The software is compatible with all Excel files created using MS Excel 2019, 2016, 2013, 2010, 2007, 2003, or 2000.

After repairing and saving the Excel file, you can open it in your MS Excel program and work on it without any performance issues.