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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  1. Andreas Killer 144K 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.

    8 people found this answer helpful.
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155 additional answers

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  1. Anonymous
    2024-10-17T16:59:55+00:00

    I vote YES.

    Of course, I'm not that naive to imagine that all this voting will change anything...

    Microsoft rarely listens to suggestions.

    4 people found this answer helpful.
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  2. Anonymous
    2024-10-18T12:39:27+00:00

    That was an irrelevant answer to the actual question posed.

    It is very simple. Excel is popping up with "check performance" every time you open a file. This is annoying and unneeded by the user. There is no option to stop this from happening thus this feature is actually making users more unproductive with lower performance.

    Turning this unrequested feature off should be a simple fix.

    Hi HanzieV,

    Greetings! Thank you for posting to Microsoft Community.

    You can try optimizing your workbook it could remove that notice permanently.

    Go to the Review tab and select “Check Performance” in the ribbon. This opens the Workbook Performance sidebar on the right.

    Check Performance on the Excel Review tab

    At the top of the sidebar, you’ll see how many cells are used and the number of cells to optimize in the workbook.

    Do you have slow workbooks due to size bloat? Give us a try at speeding up. - Microsoft Community Hub

    You can also send feedback to Microsoft. Help> Feedback to disable this feature.

    Best Regards,

    Snow Lu

    1 person found this answer helpful.
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  3. Anonymous
    2024-10-21T04:39:24+00:00

    did not answer/did not help

    2 people found this answer helpful.
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  4. Anonymous
    2024-10-21T13:51:24+00:00

    Well, it seems that MS has wasted 1.5 years talking about it instead of giving the people what they are asking for. I'm sure that a lot of code was written to add it and only a small amount of code is needed to provide the ability to switch it off. If there's a will, there's a way... if there is no will to do it, there's MS.

    6 people found this answer helpful.
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