Excel - How to disable data connection warning

This was helpful in getting rid of the annoying security message about data connections, thanks. I also always delete the data files after I've imported them. For what it's worth, instead of copying and pasting the values, I right clicked on the worksheet tab and chose Select All Sheets (I had multiple sheets) and then chose Move or Copy into a new workbook, checking the "Create a Copy" box. I then got a dialog box about data connections, but I clicked continue, and the newly created workbook doesn't have the error message, even after I've deleted the original workbook with the error message. All my formulas and formatting and so on are still there, too, so I'm happy.

Hey ADS99,

That message means that you've connected to an external data source at some point. That could be a number of things, but here's how you can pinpoint is generating the error:

1. Open your Excel workbook
2. Pick a sheet and press Command+A to select all
3. On the menu bar at the top of the screen choose Data > Get External Data
4. From this menu you have several options to import data. The last in the list is Import from FileMaker Server.... If any of the options below that are in black text rather than greyed out, that selection has a data connection.

The following images make this a little easier to understand:

Once you find the sheet with the data connection, you should be able to select a few rows at a time and follow the steps above until you find which portion of your workbook is causing the error. Once you find it, you should be able to migrate everything but that data to a new workbook and no longer have the error.

There might be an easier way to do this, but this is the only workaround I could find. Hope this helps!

Had the same problem. Found this thread. The issue seems to be caused by a sheet containing data imported from a .csv, as suggested in other replies here. Solved by:

1. Going to the sheet with the imports
2. Selecting all (Command-A)
3. Clicking on the "Data" tab in the Excel menu bar (not the Main Apple menu bar)
4. Selecting "Connections" from the ribbon (which on my display is directly below the "Data" tab button)
5. The window that opens identifies external connected files and what they are connected to and gives you "Remove", "Properties..." and "Refresh" as options.
6. Select all external sources and click "Remove".
7. Hit "OK" on the warning that follows.

I have never used this function before, but from the way it presents, I doubt steps 1. and 2. are necessary: Data/Connections seems to open a workbook-level linked file manager. I only had one external link to remove, so I'm not sure if you can zap several at once in step 6.

Hope this helps.

For me the problem was Defined Names.

Go to Formulas -> Defined Names

Delete any names that refer to other workbooks, or that are broken references.

This happened to me because I deleted sheets in the workbook that had Defined Names (I didn't need the sheets or the Defined Names anymore). Deleting the sheets does not automatically delete the Names.

I am using Excel 2010

I had a similar problem with breaking links to CSV files. I wanted to do this so I could re-import data into the same cells as I had used previously for importing; I could clear the cells but Excel wouldn't allow me to import data into them again. Deleting wasn't an option because these cells were surrounded by other data that I needed to keep in place.

I don't know if this helps with these other issues, but in Excel 2008 I found that if I selected one of the cells in the range linked to the external data, went to Data->Get External Data->Data Range Properties and deselected the "Save query definition" checkbox (at the top of the resulting dialog box, under "Query definition"), I got a prompt that said,

This will permanently remove the query definition from the sheet. Continue?

I clicked OK and then I could re-import the data.

Taking it one step further, I noticed that importing the data had resulted in named data ranges (visible in the list on the left of the formula bar) and I wanted to delete those as well. I went to Insert->Name->Define and selected the names that had been generated in the list there, one by one, and pushed delete.

It's now as if I had typed all the data in rather than imported it from CSV files.