It can be difficult to load very large data files in Excel for a number of reasons.
It’s worth noting that Excel has fixed limits on the number of rows it can handle, regardless where you load the data from (e.g., a flat file, or a database connection). The maximum row limit in Microsoft Excel is 1,048,576 and the maximum column limit stands at 16,384.
- Try reducing the data set size before attempting to open in Excel. You can split the data into smaller XLS or CSV files, and then open the new lighter-weight files in Excel.
Excel performance is highly dependent on the power of your computer. If you have an underpowered or older machine, you’re likely to face issues with Excel freezing or crashing with large amounts of data.
- Try closing other applications on your computer to free up memory and resources.
- Try opening the file on a more powerful computer.
- Try turning off auto-save to prevent the file from growing in size.
An alternative approach would be to use different software to analyze the data, or extract smaller data sets that you can load in Excel.
One free cloud-based option is to use the service we’ve developed at Gigasheet. It’s an online big data spreadsheet that can load and extract data from huge XLS files or CSV files. You can use it free up to 3GB: Gigasheet - The Big Data Spreadsheet
If you’re interested in this approach, here are detailed steps to open files too big for Excel:
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