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How to Stop Excel for Mac from Showing a Spinning Rainbow Wheel
Question details
Users experience freezing and the spinning rainbow wheel when working with large Excel workbooks on a Mac, even when system CPU and memory usage appear normal.
- Product
- Microsoft Excel for Mac
- Device & OS
- macOS
- Scenario
- Editing or calculating large workbooks containing complex formulas and extensive formatting.
- Observed behavior
- Excel becomes completely unresponsive and continuously displays the macOS spinning rainbow beachball wheel.
Before proceeding with troubleshooting, force quit Excel if necessary and ensure you have a backup copy of your workbook to prevent data loss.
Enable Multi-Threaded Calculation and Update Excel
Ensure Excel is fully utilizing your Mac's processing power by enabling multi-threaded calculation and keeping the software updated.
By default, Excel might not be using all available processor cores. Enabling multi-threaded calculation allows Excel to distribute the workload, which is crucial for handling large formulas and preventing the spinning wheel.
Launch Excel on your Mac. Navigate to the top menu bar, click on 'Excel', and select 'Preferences'.
In the Preferences window, click on 'Calculation' located under the Formulas and Lists section.
Check the box next to 'Enable multi-threaded calculation' to allow Excel to use multiple processors during recalculations.
Go to 'Help' > 'Check for Updates' in the top menu bar to ensure you have the latest bug fixes and performance improvements installed.
Optimize the Heavy Workbook
Reduce the processing load on Excel by minimizing volatile formulas, unnecessary formatting, and external links.
Test Excel in a New macOS User Profile
Determine if the freezing issue is caused by corrupted user permissions or specific profile settings on your Mac.
Experience Smooth Spreadsheet Editing on Mac with WPS Office
If Microsoft Excel continues to freeze or display the spinning wheel on your Mac, consider switching to WPS Office. It is a highly optimized, lightweight, and completely free alternative designed to handle large datasets and complex calculations seamlessly.
- 1. Download WPS Office: Visit the official WPS website and download the free WPS Office suite for macOS.
- 2. Open Your Spreadsheet: Launch WPS Spreadsheets and easily open your existing heavy .xlsx or .xlsb files.
- 3. Edit Without Lag: Enjoy a smooth, fast editing experience without encountering the spinning rainbow wheel.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does Excel for Mac show the spinning beachball on a brand new laptop?
Even on powerful new Macs, Excel can freeze if it attempts to process a massive number of volatile formulas or broken external links. Additionally, if multi-threaded calculation is disabled in Preferences, Excel cannot use the full power of your new processor.
Will reinstalling Excel for Mac fix the spinning wheel issue?
Reinstalling can help if the application files themselves are corrupted. However, performance issues are more commonly tied to the complexity of the workbook itself or corrupted macOS user profile settings. Try optimizing your workbook first before reinstalling.
How do I know if the problem is my workbook or the Excel application?
Try opening a completely blank workbook and performing basic calculations. If Excel runs smoothly, the issue is likely specific to the large workbook you were using. If the blank workbook also causes the spinning wheel, it points to an issue with the application or your macOS user profile.
What are volatile formulas in Excel?
Volatile formulas, such as NOW(), TODAY(), INDIRECT(), and OFFSET(), are functions that trigger a recalculation every single time any change is made anywhere in the worksheet. Relying heavily on these formulas can cause severe performance drops.
