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: Oldest
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2017-08-21T12:57:57+00:00

    Hi,

    am aware of the above mentioned workaround however do we have any permanent fix

    for this..please do let me know..

    Thanks

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2017-09-06T12:17:35+00:00

    We have the same problem with excel whenever trying to open a workbook in a email attachment on office outlook, if it is saved on machine no problems. As we need to open sheets and check or alter them before forwarding again it has become a major problem first saving all attachments then opening them from local disk.

    Went to both spare computers and did the same thing just opening the attachment with Open Office gave no problems nor did excel 2003 give a problem. So problem seems to be with either with Outlook 2010 or excel 2010 (Office 2013 does the same). Just heard something funny while writing this, do not seem to have the problem on machine with Windows 7 and outlook 2010, but on all windows10 machines, my wife has just confirmed with me that her windows 7 machine is opening the same excel attachment fine.

    So will quickly go do more tests, did not think of checking the win 7 machine we use for banking as still slightly concerned about Win 10 security. otherwise same Microsoft software and Trend security installed on both. Will get back after more tests.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2017-09-18T06:11:36+00:00

    Your solution was straight to the point and effective. Thank you very much.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2017-09-21T13:53:43+00:00

    Thank you for this information, i right clicked on the document and i unblocked the document. I now have to figure out how to change the security settings on my new office install because all of the mircrosoft documents are like this

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments