How to stop Excel from automatically checking Workbook performance?

Question

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.

Answer 1

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.

Answer 2

Simple but disappointing answer: you can't.

Hence this growing thread of completely understandable rage.

Answer 3

Thanks for your attention Prash. It's encouraging to see the issue being acknowledged and worked on.

Would you mind ellobrating on this part please... "the majority of users who optimized away these cells experienced noticeable performance improvements, even when simply opening their workbooks. And they continued to keep these optimizations persisted in subsequent user sessions too."

As I understand it if you follow the prompts to "optimize" the sheet the changes are permanent unless we manually revert to a previous version (correct me if I'm wrong), so the fact that many continue to keep these optimizations in subsequent user sessions should not necessarily be seen as an endorsement of the feature, but just as likely represents end users blissfully unaware that they've just destroyed the formatting that a developer has spent time developing.

Thoughts?

Answer 4

A simple equivalent of the "default sheet size" would be to simply hide the columns and rows beyond the maximum size of the sheet. If you do that first and then format cells after selecting all you'll only format those which you might use and no excess cells. Just a thought...

Answer 5

Dear all,

 

Apologies for the delay in rolling out the setting. We are working hard to release it soon and will keep you posted.

 

We acknowledge issues you are encountering. Additionally, we want to provide some context regarding the broader audience experiencing performance pain due to file bloat from excessive formatted cells with no data. There are primarily two use cases impacted,

 

1. Unintentional excessive formatted cells with no data: These accumulate over time in customer workbooks, often appearing indistinguishable from blank cells, leading users to be unaware of the need for removal.
2. Intentional excessive formatted cells with no data: These are typically included by the workbook author/designer from the start for aesthetic reasons or usability reasons or "...the way I want it to look and don't want to change it…" or "…designed for ease of use and visibility for the end use...", etc.

 

Our data reveals that with our notification trigger with its high threshold of more than tens of thousands of cells and over 50% excessively formatted cells with no data, the majority of users who optimized away these cells experienced noticeable performance improvements, even when simply opening their workbooks. And they continued to keep these optimizations persisted in subsequent user sessions too.

 

And so, we believe most users suffer from performance pain due to Unintentional excessive formatted cells with no data and would benefit from the notification to enhance their productivity. At the same time, we agree that users with Intentional excessive formatted cells with no data need control over the notification with a setting, and we are actively working on releasing this setting soon. We plan to monitor the setting’s usage to determine if future adjustments are needed as well.

 

We apologize again for the delay. And your feedback and patience are greatly appreciated.

 

Thank you,

Prash

Lol, I wonder which users you mean - surely not the professional business ones.

As the performance check everyone can reach also manually, you simply should add a toggle under advanced so the user - who is aware - can deactivate the automatic performance check bar entirely, because obviously the "close over X" does not work for everyone.

By the way - when I open the Performance check manually, you get a list with all recommended areas of "empty cells" showing the column-row number and it gets also highlighted - but does not jump to the sheet when marked,

You can **not** choose which part you want to get optimized - you can only choose "optimize sheet". Means everything.
It is ok to have this feature as a manual option, for deleting formats in "empty cells" several at the same time, but then I want also he ability to select which areas on a sheet and not the full sheet.