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
    2016-07-06T20:11:01+00:00

    Thank you! I've been working around this for over a year! Even downloaded Open Office just to open files from the web, which is every day. Thanks again.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2016-06-29T15:29:16+00:00

    Any solution for MS Excel for Mac 2016? I'm having the same error - I have 700 GB of disk space - so that is not an issue. There is no trust center or protected-mode settings that I can find.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2016-06-19T14:50:35+00:00

    And what if you're on a Mac, on Office 2013, and don't have an "options" tab (that you can find)? 

    The easiest solution to this problem that I've seen so far ... is to use Google Sheets. It has none of the problems Excel does (so far). And it lets me save files.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2016-06-12T07:29:07+00:00

    That Worked!!!!!!

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments