For big data users, it's common to have an Excel file too big to open or too slow to work with. The maximum Excel sheet is just 1,048,576 rows. Row Zero is an enterprise-grade spreadsheet that supports billion row datasets (1000x Excel's limit) and is much faster than Excel for big data. Excel files that take minutes or hours to update can update in seconds in Row Zero. Row Zero is free to try and lets you open big XLSX files, along with CSV, parquet, JSONL, .gz, etc.
Table of Contents
- What is Row Zero?
- How to open a big Excel file
- Max Excel file size
- XLSX vs CSV
- Situations when file is too big for Excel
What is Row Zero?
Row Zero is an enterprise-grade spreadsheet designed for big data and speed. Row Zero works like Excel and Google Sheets, but supports billion row spreadsheets (1000x Excel's limit) on Enterprise plans and millions of rows on a free plan. Row Zero runs in the cloud, so it is not limited by your computer's resources and works well on any operating system (Windows, Mac, Linux). You can open and edit massive files or connect live to your data source and build auto-updating connected spreadsheets on big, dynamic data.
Row Zero is also much faster than Excel for big data users. Operations that take minutes or hours in Excel take seconds in Row Zero.
How to open a big Excel file
If your Excel file is too big to open or is slow to update, you can open the file in Row Zero and enjoy a much faster spreadsheet experience. Similar to Google Sheets, Row Zero is not 100% compatible with every Excel feature. You can import an XLSX file directly and your data will import but some features may not import correctly including obscure formulas, some types of formatting, pivot tables, charts, and some advanced features like Macros or VBA. Row Zero supports 200+ built-in functions, advanced formatting, dynamic pivot tables, dynamic charts, and python, but these features don't convert 1:1 from Excel, so you will need to rebuild them in Row Zero. You have three options for importing a large Excel file:
- Download and import an XLSX file
- Download and import a CSV file
- Open your original dataset directly in Row Zero
1. Importing a large XSLX file
You can save your Excel file as XLSX and open in Row Zero. This preserves formulas, some formatting, and allows you to import entire workbooks with multiple sheets of data. Here's how to open a big XLSX file:
Open up a workbook in Row Zero
Login or sign up for free and open a workbook.Import your big XLSX file: In the top navigation, click Data to import an XLSX file directly from your computer, a URL, or Amazon S3.
Review and update your XLSX file
Row Zero imports your XLSX file with sheets, formulas, and formatting preserved where possible. As mentioned above, some Excel features do not convert 1:1 into Row Zero including obscure formulas, pivot tables, charts, some formatting, and some advanced features like VBA and macros. You'll need to review your workbook and rebuild these components in Row Zero. Row Zero's built-in formula functions (e.g. COUNTIF, XLOOKUP, etc.) are Excel-compatible and use the same syntax. Charts, pivot tables, and slicers work similarly but have some advanced features:- Pivot tables - Row Zero pivot tables are dynamic and auto-updating and include several unique features including count unique, date grouping, percentiles, and first/last.
- Slicers - Row Zero slicers are full-featured filters that support one or more conditions (e.g. >=0), search values, select all, unselect all, and connect to multiple pivot tables and charts.
- Charts - Charts are dynamic and auto-updating and you can add slicers to any chart, not just pivot charts.
Row Zero does not support VBA or macros. Instead, Row Zero has a built-in python window for writing custom functions and importing python packages. Here's a breakdown of Row Zero vs Excel vs Google Sheets and here's an example large spreadsheet in Row Zero if you want to play around with a big file. It's 7.2 million rows of U.S. flight data and easily opens in seconds.
Open big XLSX file in Row Zero
2. Importing a large CSV file
Another option for transferring a large Excel file is to download it as a CSV and then import the CSV file to Row Zero. The benefit of downloading as CSV is that the CSV file format strips out pretty much everything that could cause an error when transferring XLSX to Row Zero. CSVs are plain text files and are effectively the same thing as copying and pasting values out of your Excel workbook. However, there are several drawbacks - converting Excel to CSV loses formatting, converts formulas to values, and can only be done one sheet at a time. However, in some situations it can be the easiest solution.
3. Open your original dataset directly in Row Zero
This is often the best solution for working with big data in a spreadsheet. Row Zero supports a variety of file types including big CSVs, Parquet, TXT, JSONL, .gz, TSV, etc. and also lets you connect directly to your data source to import data seamlessly. Everything you build on connected data stays in sync and automatically updates as source data changes.
Max Excel file size
Excel has workbook size limits that effectively set a maximum file size in Excel. In addition to Excel's maximum data limits, there are many reasons Excel can slow down or crash well under these limits, including complex formula usage, scripting, add-ins, or heavy formatting. Here's a breakdown of Excel file limits:
- Excel maximum row - 1,048,576 rows per sheet
- Excel maximum column - 16,384 (AFD) columns per sheet
- Excel maximum sheets - No strict limit on sheets per Excel file, but in practice, the number of sheets will be limited by your computer's resources.
- Excel file size limits - 32-bit desktop Excel has a 2GB limit. 64-bit desktop Excel has no hard limit, but will be limited by your computer's RAM since it leverages your computer's resources. If you have a powerful computer, you'll eventually be limited by the max row and column limits above. Excel online has a 100MB file size limit with SharePoint Online.
Ultimately if you need to open an Excel file more than 1 million rows or if you're struggling with a slow Excel workbook, Row Zero is a powerful Excel alternative that is faster with much bigger data capacity.
XLSX vs CSV
If you have a tabular data file or spreadsheet that is more than 1 million rows, you cannot save it as XLSX because you will be restricted to the maximum row in Excel (1,048,576). Instead, you'll need to use a different file format like CSV. CSV has no row limit so it can store millions of rows easily.
Here are key differences between CSV vs XLSX:
- Row Limit:
- CSV: No limit
- XLSX: 1,048,576 rows
- Number of Sheets:
- CSV: 1 sheet only
- XLSX: One or many sheets
- Formatting:
- CSV: No formatting
- XLSX: Full Excel formatting options (fonts, colors, borders, cell styles)
- Formulas:
- CSV: Not supported
- XLSX: Supports all Excel formulas
- Charts:
- CSV: Not supported
- XLSX: Supports Excel charts
- Pivot Tables:
- CSV: Not supported
- XLSX: Supports Excel pivot tables
- Format type:
- CSV: Plain text
- XLSX: Binary (compressed XML-based Open XML format)
- Data types supported:
- CSV: Text and numbers only (everything is plain text)
- XLSX: Numbers, text, dates, booleans, formulas
- Compatibility with other tools:
- CSV: Universal - CSV is the most widely accepted file format
- XLSX: Limited to particular software tools (typically other spreadsheet software and some BI tools)
The CSV file format offers a simple and universal format for storing and transferring large datasets. There are several other large file formats that are often better for large or complex datasets including parquet, JSON, JSONL, etc. as well as compressed formats like .gz, but none of these can be imported or exported from Excel.
Situations when a file is too big for Excel
There are many situations when you may be working with a file too big for Excel. Here's how to handle several common situations
- CSV too big for Excel
- XLSX file too big to open
- Excel slow or unresponsive
- Connected sheet grows beyond limit
- Can't open large file formats
- Your computer isn't powerful enough
1. CSV too big for Excel
It is common to have a CSV file too big to open in Excel. CSV files have no row limits and can be massive in size, well beyond Excel's limits. You will not be able to fully open a CSV file more than 1 million rows in Excel. If you attempt to open the file, you'll get a warning that says "This data set is too large for the Excel Grid." 
If you click OK, it will import the file up to Excel's maximum row of 1,048,576 and exclude all rows beyond that.
Row Zero is a good option to open big CSV files that are too large for Excel. The free tier lets you open CSV files up to 5GB and 10s of millions of rows and Enterprise plans support billion row datasets.
2. XLSX file too big to open
Typically an Excel file won't save in a state that would make it too big to open, so it's more likely an XLSX file is very slow to open or fails to save and reverts back to the last saved version. It's much more common to have a different file format (e.g. CSV, TXT, etc.) that is too large to open in Excel.
However, if you find yourself stuck failing to open a big XLSX file, you can try a few things:
Restart your computer, ensure no other programs or Excel files are open and try opening your XLSX file. It's possible that other applications are taxing resources and letting your machine focus on just opening the big XLSX file can give you a better chance of success.
If your file still won't open in Excel, try opening the file in Row Zero. Row Zero can handle much larger files than Excel. If you're unable to successfully open the file you need in Row Zero, it's possible something is corrupted in your XSLX file and you may need to revert to a previously saved version.
Go back to the last version that successfully worked/saved. If Excel crashed unexpectedly, the next time you open Excel, you'll typically see a Document Recovery pane that lists out AutoRecovered versions with timestamps. If you don't see this, you can navigate to File > Info and look for "Manage Workbook" or "Manage Versions" and click "Recover Unsaved workbooks".
Another solution is to try opening the file in a database. Microsoft Access is a basic database that works well with XLSX files.
3. Excel slow or unresponsive
A more common situation is that you can open a large XLSX file but Excel runs slow or freezes up when working with the large file. There are a number of things you can do to make Excel faster with big files including:
- Remove filters
- Remove formatting
- Copy and paste formulas as values
- Use helper columns
- Switch to manual calculations
- Split into multiple files
Ultimately if you optimize Excel for speed and continue to face performance issues, your best bet is likely to try a more powerful spreadsheet like Row Zero.
4. Connected sheet grows beyond limit
With Excel add-ins, ODBC drivers, and tools like Power Query, Power Pivot, and Power BI, you can connect Excel to external data sources which let you schedule automated data updates to your Excel file. These typically only execute when the file is open, but this can be a way that your Excel file grows beyond an acceptable performance limit and becomes too slow to use or difficult to open.
If you want to build connected spreadsheets, try Row Zero, which has built-in data connectors and is optimized to work with large, connected data sources like Snowflake, Databricks, Redshift, BigQuery, and Postgres.
5. Excel cannot open large file formats
Another common scenario when working with big data is having a file format that Excel doesn't open. As datasets grow larger, it's increasingly common to use more efficient file formats for large or complex datasets including parquet, JSON, JSONL, etc. It's also common to compress large files for more efficient transfer (for example CSV.gz files). Excel cannot open any of these formats and there are few tools that can.
Row Zero easily opens parquet, JSONL, and .gz files with a simple file import that is the same for any file format.
6. Your computer is not powerful enough
Since Excel leverages your computer's memory and processor to operate, you may struggle to open large Excel files or hit performance limits if your computer is underpowered. If working with big data in Excel, you'll want to have at least 16 GB of RAM and a CPU (processor) at least as powerful as Intel Core i7 or i9 (or AMD Ryzen 7/9) with at least 6 or 8 cores.
Be careful spending money upgrading your machine in the hopes of improving Excel performance. While it can certainly help, you'll still be limited by the fundamental limits of Excel and may spend a lot of money and still not be able to work with big data in Excel. Before going down this path, try opening your file in Row Zero. Row Zero runs in the cloud, independent of your computer's resources so you can work with massive million row datasets on basic laptops.
Conclusion
Legacy spreadsheets like Excel are not built for the big datasets common in many companies today. For some companies, 1 million row datasets represent an hour or day's worth of data and are simply too small for analyzing their business. Due to Excel's data limits, some folks try BI tools or spend money to upgrade their machines but ultimately still have the same core need to work with big data in a spreadsheet. Row Zero is a powerful, enterprise-grade spreadsheet that easily opens files too big for Excel. It's also a great solution if Excel is running slow and you want to switch to a faster spreadsheet built for big data.