Excel document keeps freezing with spinning beachball on MacBook Pro M4, but works fine on Windows

Question

I’m running into a problem with a large Excel document on a MacBook Pro M4. Every time I try to make a change, Excel freezes and I get the spinning beachball for about 30 seconds before it comes back. Then as soon as I do anything else, it freezes again. I’ve already tried updating Excel, disabling add-ins, running in safe mode, and restarting both the app and the laptop, but nothing has helped.

What’s confusing is that this same document works perfectly fine on a Windows laptop, even though that machine is older and less powerful. Has anyone else seen this kind of issue with Excel on macOS, and is there something specific I should be checking or changing to get this to run smoothly on the Mac?

Answer 1

Hello Juan Ocando,

Thank you for posting question on Microsoft Q&A forum

I understand your Excel is experiencing freezing every time you make change to your document on MacBook Pro M4.

Have you try disabling Hardware Graphics Acceleration in Excel:

• Go to Excel > Preferences > General
• Uncheck “Use hardware graphics acceleration”

This method could help improve Excel performance and resolve the freezing problem.

I hope this help with your issue. If the problem still persists, please click "Add Comment" to let me know.

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