How to stop Excel from automatically checking Workbook performance?

Anonymous
2023-03-06T17:17:06+00:00

Performance check??

The Excel sheet is the way I want it to look and don't want to change it for better performance. I just want Excel to stop prompting me.

Every time I open an Excel sheet, it wants me to do a performance check because of:

"Excess formatting and unneeded metadata cause large, slow workbooks. Check for improvements to performance"

So I find myself X-clicking away this message every time. Because there is no 'excess' of formatting. The Excel sheet simply is a nicely layouted workbook and we want it to be looking this way. We don't need Excel trying to outsmart us and giving this suggestion every time you open the workbook to remove information.

It is only very confusing for not-very-experienced users who also make use of my Excel sheet.

How and where can I set Excel in a way that is stops asking this unwanted question?

  • The question mostly pops-up in the Web version of Office 365.
  • I tried unchecking boxes in the performance check tool, in the desktop version, but to no result.

Would be lovely if someone has a workaround or knows which box needs to be un-checked.

And it would be awesome if a MS engineer helps giving priority to this problem, so that it can be switched of universally.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Excel | For business | 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.

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Answer accepted by question author
Andreas Killer 144.1K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
2025-01-25T10:37:57+00:00

This thread shows that there are a significant number of people complaining about this. Unfortunately, this is only a user forum, we understand your problem, but we cannot do anything to fix it. Only the Excel developers can do this if they are instructed to do so.

As previously stated, this is simply a statistical problem, Microsoft must first recognize that this is a problem. Unfortunately, this is not so easy considering that more than 200,000 people work at Microsoft.

There is a feedback portal where you can cast your vote. There is already a feed on this topic, unfortunately with very few votes. I'm sure if we get as many votes as this post has been viewed, then Microsoft will react.

Anyone reading this, please follow these steps:

Click on this link:
https://feedbackportal.microsoft.com/feedback/idea/89bb523d-b197-ef11-95f6-0022484d7a88

  1. Sign in
  2. Click the Vote button

@HanzieV:

If you mark this reply as answer, it will be the first to appear when someone views this thread. I hope we can encourage as many people as possible to draw Microsoft's attention to this problem. Unfortunately, this is all we can do for you.

Andreas.

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  1. Anonymous
    2024-12-16T06:50:56+00:00

    Does the 'protect sheet' option stop other people sharing my spreadsheets from running the optimisation at least? I suppose I could test this with a dummy spreadsheet but I sure don't want to find out the hard way. :) Does anyone know?

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  3. Anonymous
    2024-11-26T12:08:28+00:00

    Thanks Claudia, but searching on the excel channel with the term 'performance' is precisely what I did, and the results I got were pages and pages of posts by people, each saying the same thing, each with but a handful of votes. Until these are collated, they probably won't show up on MS's radar. If we all pile onto one post we might stand a chance, but until then I'm not holding my breath.

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  4. Anonymous
    2024-11-26T11:56:41+00:00

    this is not true, recently f.i. the vote for an option to disable the left app sidebar in Outlook was successful there :) but it got really a lot votes, also starting here in answers forum.

    • you need to login directly into the feedback microsoft channel online to be able to search and vote others up, if you do it in the app, it will be a privat one, not public.

    So if threads get a lot votes - there is a chance they take it seriously - microsoft feedback channel.
    You can search excel channel for word "performance" - this is one example https://feedbackportal.microsoft.com/feedback/idea/52093f8d-fa00-ef11-a73d-6045bd7e894e

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