Summary: This guide helps you resolve Excel not responding and frequent Excel freeze issues in Excel on Windows 10. It mentions some effective solutions to repair Excel and resolve Excel is not responding problem. These solutions will also help you fix Excel crashing problem while working on the spreadsheet.

Similar to any other program, you may experience problems with Microsoft Excel while opening or working on a document. Sometimes, it may not start at all or freeze and display an error message such as ‘Excel is not responding’. When it happens, you may want to wait for the program to respond.

Tip: If you are experiencing Excel not responding problem with a particular Excel file, it’s quite possible that the file is corrupt or partially damaged. And thus, leading to an Excel freeze or crash problem. Use Stellar Repair for Excel software to quickly repair and restore Excel (.xls/.xlsx) file in its original, intact form. You can download the free trial version of the software from the below link.

But if Excel doesn’t respond after a while and remains stuck, you need to force close the program from “Task Manager”. Now, this could be disastrous if happens while you are working on an important Excel document that took you hours to prepare. Force closing Excel due to such error can damage the Excel document and it may fail to open next time.

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Excel may stop responding, freeze, or crash suddenly due to several reasons. It can happen while saving a spreadsheet or opening an Excel document. It may also occur while editing or inserting images, graphs, etc. But usually, it occurs when the system crashes or shuts down abruptly while you are working on a document. Here’s an instance,

Suppose, you worked overnight on a critical document which is to be presented at a meeting the next day. This Excel spreadsheet includes critical graphs and charts, and much more. When you are about to save it, there is a power failure, and your system shuts down without warning. When the power is up, you restarted the system to check your Excel. To your dismay, a message pops up – “Excel Crashed” or “Microsoft Excel not responding”. 

This could be frustrating. However, there is no need to despair as there are solutions to not just overcome this error but other corresponding issues such as Excel freezing, hanging, crashing, etc. Below is an infographic that quickly briefs all the possible solutions to fix Excel not responding error.

Follow the solutions discussed below in the given order to fix Excel freezing and hanging issues.

If Excel is not working as intended and frequently stops responding, you may try to start Excel in Safe Mode. It is a common DIY way to fix ‘Excel is not responding’ problem.

In Safe Mode, Excel starts with only essential services, bypasses certain functionalities and doesn’t load the add-ins, which might be the reason behind the error in MS Excel . To open and troubleshoot Excel in Safe Mode:

Open the Excel file and check if it still crashes. If not, the problem could be a faulty add-in or formatting and styling error.

Proceed to the next solution to check and fix the problem.

In Microsoft Excel, there are two types of add-ins:

Both types of add-ins can cause the freezing problem in Excel . Follow the steps below to disable unwanted and faulty add-ins:

If Excel doesn’t freeze, enable subsequent add-in and then again use Excel to observe it. Repeat the steps until you find the faulty plugin, which is causing the problem.

Then remove it from Excel add-ins to resolve the problem.

This problem may also occur if Windows and MS Office are not updated. Therefore, install the latest updates for both Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office.

You can set the installation and update option to ‘Automatic mode’ in Windows. This will download and install critical updates for MS Office, which might fix the Excel performance issue. The steps to enable automatic updates are as follows:

After update, restart Excel and check if the problem is resolved.

NOTE: From now on, MS Excel will also get the latest update consistently, without the need for manual intervention.

Antivirus is important for device safety. However, if your antivirus conflicts with MS Office apps such as Excel, it could lead to Excel freezing and not responding errors.

To check if the problem is due to anti-virus, disable it and reopen the Excel document. Check if Excel performs well or if it still hangs.

If the problem is resolved, contact your antivirus software provider for help to keep antivirus running without affecting the system and other programs such as MS Excel.

Although it may seem irrelevant, changing the default printer is another easy and effective solution to overcome the error. Reason being, Excel communicates with the printer to find supported margins when we open an Excel sheet.

If Excel doesn’t find the supported margin, it may stop responding or crash. The steps to change the default printer are as follows:

Reopen the Excel document to check whether the error occurs or not.

A corrupt or damaged Microsoft Office can also cause the ‘Excel is not responding’ problem. You can resolve this by repairing the Microsoft Office files. The steps are as follows:

This may take a while. After the repair is done, check your Excel program and file for the error.

Sometimes, repairing MS Office may not work. In such a case, removing and reinstalling Microsoft Office can resolve the ‘Excel is not responding’ problem. To do so, follow these steps:

Then run the MS Office installation setup to re-install MS Office on your system.

In several situations, a corrupt or partially damaged Excel (XLS/XLSX) file is the cause of this error. In such a case, you can download and install Stellar Repair for Excel to repair the corrupt or damaged Excel file. By repairing the Excel file, you can resolve the Excel freezing error quickly without applying much efforts.

The steps to use the software for Excel file repair are as follows:

And keep Stellar Repair for Excel installed on your system. You never know when you might need this handy tool.

You may also refer to Microsoft support for more details on Excel not responding, hangs, freezes or stops working issues.

Conclusion

Now that the methods for fixing the ‘Excel is not responding’ error are before you, try all these and see which one works for you. If the cause of this error is a damaged or corrupt Excel file, only repairing the XLS/XLSX file can resolve the issue.

For this purpose, it’s recommended to use a reliable software such as Stellar Repair for Excel as it offers an easy-to-use interface, thereby making Excel file repair process a seamless experience.

The software recovers table, chart, chart sheet, cell comment, number, text, shared formulas, image, formula, sort and filter, and other objects. It also preserves worksheet properties, layout, and cell formatting. It can repair multiple XLS/XLSX files simultaneously and fix all Excel file corruption errors.

All these features extend the software capabilities beyond just fixing the ‘Excel not responding’ error.

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Thank you, Jyoti! The same error message is appearing on my screen after opening the file. I clicked on the wait for the program to respond option and, it took few seconds for processing and closed the MS Excel automatically. I removed the Add-ins, and now it is working fine.

Hi Kyle, We are happy to help you. Keep reading our blogs to learn new tips and tricks.

what to do when excel is not responding

Hi Jona,

The blog describes the best solutions to handle Not responding error in Excel. If manual solutions are not working then, you can fix it by using Stellar Repair for Excel.

Let me know if you have any other queries.

Thank you guys most of your tips are very helpful.

Even that I believe the solution for the problems with excel could be solved only not using nothing from Microsoft, just uninstall them.

I think users face this trouble due to bad practices like improper shutdown.

Sometimes, an unknown error or bug is also responsible for damage in Excel file.

I found that an Excel xlsx file was somehow corrupt and when it saved as a txt format and reloaded it began to work properly.

It depends on the level of damage in Excel file. Minor errors can be resolved using manual tips.

This issue was responsible for decreasing the productivity of our small business. But, you guys gave us exception support. Now, our team doing their best for achieving all MIS goals.

Great!