Excel is freezing (not responding) when copy and paste.

Question

On my worksheet, I like to copy and paste 4 or 5 rows at a time to eliminate having to type same info out week after week. This past few months, when I do, it freezes. The wheel turns and says "excel not responding." I have to go completely out, and when I do it again, it does it again. I've done copy and pasting for years. What has changed or is happening here?

Answer 1

This was happening to me constantly!! Very frustrating. Did you know that every time you copy & paste something using the "SNIP" tool that windows saves the image in your "Gallery" folder? I deleted everything out of my "Gallery" folder, I also deleted all of my downloaded files. This fixed the issue for me!! I hope it helps someone else.

Answer 2

I have just had this problem. It happened after I applied Conditional Formatting to my worksheet. I removed Conditional Formatting (which had just coloured alternate rows different colours) and the problem disappeared. Might be worth looking at.

Answer 3

In my case for some reason every time I copy-paste Excel tries to access the default printer. It took me a long time to realize there was a little notification on the left bottom corner. After changing the default printer to "Microsoft Print to PDF" Excel stopped freezing.

Awesome, that was my problem, I didn't realize. And It happens when I install my new HP wifi printer, an ECO Tank. I try everything, Uninstall Excel, chrome, etc, until I found this post. Thanks a lot bro!

Answer 4

Thank you very much! This worked on Windows 11 / Excel 365!