Microsoft Excel cannot open or save any more documents because there is not enough available memory or disk space.

Anonymous
2013-01-14T20:16:02+00:00

Hello,

I am running Office Pro Plus 2013.

I try to open a 35KB xlsx and I get this message:

"Microsoft Excel cannot open or save any more documents because there is not enough available memory or disk space.

. To make more memory available, close workbooks or programs you no longer need.

. To free disk space, delete files you no longer need from the disk you are saving to."

I have 200GB free on drive C and 16GB RAM with only 18% in use according to task manager. My Users folder is actually on D: (it's a hard shorctut) and this has 800GB free.

Excel is opening all other things fine and all other office apps work fine (as does everything else) it's just this one small xlsx that is causing me problems.

Googling comes up with lots of results and all seem to either boil down to user error (insufficient disk space) or an incorrect path. A egistry hack, which I've tried, sets the Cache folder to point to c:\Windows\Temp. This makes no difference (but everything else still works)

The spreadsheet in question has been downloaded from Google docs. I've tried a few times to download and always get the same. I've also tried the ods format and I get the same results in Excel. Downloading as PDF, or CSV is fine.

Any ideas?

Microsoft 365 and Office | Excel | For home | Windows

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments
Answer accepted by question author
Anonymous
2013-01-15T10:20:44+00:00

Hi,

Thank you for posting in Microsoft Community. As I understand, you are unable to open a particular Excel file which is downloaded from the Google docs.

Since the issue occurs with a particular file, it might be file specific issue.

Just a quick question:

What is the format of the File?

Save the file locally on the system and then try to open the file and check if it opens fine.

Right click on the saved file, click on Properties and uncheck the option Block and then try to open the file and check.

If you are still unable to open the file in Excel then open the file in CSV format, save the file as Excel file (.xlsx) and then try to open the file and check.

I hope the above suggestions helps to resolve your issue. If you need any further assistance reply and we will be glad to assist you.

Thank you.

Was this answer helpful?

1600+ people found this answer helpful.
0 comments

183 additional answers

Sort by: Most helpful
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2015-05-07T16:37:56+00:00

    Re: ExcelOptions etc above

    I am sorry, I must be a bit dense but I cannot see Excel Options in my version which is Excel2013.  Where do I look to find the options you refer to please

    Gloster Fox

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2015-05-07T16:35:56+00:00

    The solution is easy - it's just a stupid error message that has nothing to do with the actual problem, and the problem is actually a microsoft feature, as often is:

    • Office now has some kind of "protected-mode" feature, which prevents office apps from doing certain things under certain conditions.
    • One of them is to stop excel from opening attachments coming from outlook :-(

    Just go in Excel options, trust center, settings, and untick all the options about "protected view".

    Save and voila, suddenly excel can open all your files and has absolutely no problems with your gigs of free memory.

    Thanks to the brilliant minds who conceived such an awkward feature with awkward error messages and ultra-deep menu options to clear - and of course no simple help.

    This does work and thank you for this Gus but there is a way to do this without disabling your Office security.  I think you will find that if you add the location these files are coming from to your Internet Explorer "Trusted Sites" they will work just fine.

    To do this go to "Internet Options" in control panel.  Click the "security" tab and then highlight "Trusted Sites" with a single click then click the "sites" button.  

    In the field to "Add this website to the zone" you can enter a web address such as https://box.com or a server address such as 192.168.111.100 

    Depending on what you are adding you may need to un-tick the box to "require server verification (https:) for all sites in this zone.

    Now you should find that this error goes away without disabling the "protected mode" features in Office apps.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2015-05-07T15:45:31+00:00

    Hello, 

    I was wondering why this happens? I understand how to fix it but I get why this happens. 

    Thank you.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2015-04-23T02:57:19+00:00

    The solution is easy - it's just a stupid error message that has nothing to do with the actual problem, and the problem is actually a microsoft feature, as often is:

    • Office now has some kind of "protected-mode" feature, which prevents office apps from doing certain things under certain conditions.
    • One of them is to stop excel from opening attachments coming from outlook :-(

    Just go in Excel options, trust center, settings, and untick all the options about "protected view".

    Save and voila, suddenly excel can open all your files and has absolutely no problems with your gigs of free memory.

    Thanks to the brilliant minds who conceived such an awkward feature with awkward error messages and ultra-deep menu options to clear - and of course no simple help.

    This does work and thank you for this Gus but there is a way to do this without disabling your Office security.  I think you will find that if you add the location these files are coming from to your Internet Explorer "Trusted Sites" they will work just fine.

    To do this go to "Internet Options" in control panel.  Click the "security" tab and then highlight "Trusted Sites" with a single click then click the "sites" button.  

    In the field to "Add this website to the zone" you can enter a web address such as https://box.com or a server address such as 192.168.111.100 

    Depending on what you are adding you may need to un-tick the box to "require server verification (https:) for all sites in this zone.

    Now you should find that this error goes away without disabling the "protected mode" features in Office apps.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments