Recommendation for maximum Excel file size?

**Nirmall** · 02-21-2024, 07:44 AM

Hello friends,

have created a workbook which has many vba modules and a custom ribbon.

Is there any thumb rule as to what should be the maximum size of an excel workbook like mine so that it does not crash or corrupt?

Any idea!!!!

**ByteMarks** · 02-21-2024, 10:32 AM

You can reduce the file size by around a third by saving it as an xlsb.
Also, for reasons I haven't worked out, if you click save multiple times in quick succession, that can result in a smaller file size.

In my experience:

< 1MB = normal
2MB to 5MB = large
6MB to 20MB = big. It's at this point you'll have difficulty emailing the file if you need to.
>20MB = very big

Having said that, I regularly use files 50-80MB in 32bit Excel with no issues, but I do make use of separate instances of Excel so that there aren't multiple files sharing the same RAM allocation. This also means that if one does crash, then it doesn't take the others out with it. The downside of this is that copying and pasting between separate instances can be sketchy and with the new SDI (Single Document Interface) versions it isn't as easily apparent which instance a window belongs to.