[Fixed!] Excel Freezes When Copying and Pasting (13 Possible Solutions)

Facing frequent freezes or crashes when you are copying and pasting in Excel? These frequent freezes cause the Excel maneuvers very long and time-consuming. Also, you may lose your unsaved progress if you are forced to stop Excel when it freezes.

This guide might come in handy if you want to fix this problem instead of working around the problem.

Excel Freezes When Copying and Pasting: 13 Possible Solutions

Freezing is the phenomenon where an application or software stops processing any information and does nothing for a period of time until it fixes itself or crashes. The sudden and random freezes can make a simple process like copying and pasting very lengthy. Not to mention, it can be very annoying to deal with especially at inconvenient times.

The problem where Excel freezes when copying and pasting can be caused by many different issues. If you copy and paste highly formatted cells, or the spreadsheet contains too many conditional formatted cells, you may face a lag or even a freeze while copying and pasting. Your machine may also be of the lower end to process too much information in a spreadsheet.

First and foremost, try checking the system requirements for your version of Microsoft office. If your system meets the requirements and Excel is still freezing, then you should try out these possible fixes. As a particular cause is a bit difficult to pinpoint, try each one to see what works for you.

Solution 1: Disable Live Preview Feature

When you paste a copied cell or range of cells by right-clicking and then using special paste options, your Excel application can result in freezes depending on your system and PC. With this in mind, you can wait for some time for the freeze to be over or press Ctrl+V on your keyboard to paste values to work around this issue. But if you need special paste options, follow these steps to disable live preview which will help with the issue.

Steps:

• First of all, go to the File tab on your ribbon and select Options on the left side of the preview window.

• Then in the Excel Options box, select the General option.
• After that, under the User Interface options uncheck the Enable Live Preview option.

• Then you can click on OK.

This won’t preview what the pasted value will look like. But it will solve the issue if your Excel app freezes while loading the preview.

Solution 2: Remove All Conditional Formattings

Your Excel app might be freezing because there might be too much conditional formatting in your spreadsheet. And your system or driver is causing issues while the application is loading out data every time. In this case, removing the conditional formatting will help you with the issue.

Steps:

• First of all, go to the Home tab from your ribbon.
• Then click on Conditional Formatting under the Styles
• Now, hover your cursor over to the Clear Rules option from the drop-down menu.
• After that, select the option you need to clear the rule used for conditional formatting.

This will either remove conditional formats from the cells you have selected or from the spreadsheet or table depending on the option you selected. And can fix your freezing issues in Excel when copying and pasting.

Solution 3: Remove Issues with Document Inspector

You can check the workbook for hidden properties or personal information for issues and remove them by using the Document Inspector feature. Follow these steps to use this feature.

Steps:

• First, click on the File tab from your ribbon.
• Then on the left of the preview window select Info.

• After that, select Check for issues beside Inspect Workbook on the right side of the preview screen.
• Then, select Inspect Document from the drop-down menu.

• Next, in the Document Inspector box, click on Inspect. If you want you can select the content you want to inspect before that.

• Finally, click on Remove All for all the issues the inspector will find.

Solution 4: Remove Cache Files

When the Excel cache gets overloaded, it can cause freezes when copying and pasting. If this is indeed causing the problem, follow these steps to clear caches of Excel 365.

Steps:

• First of all, open up the Run command dialog box by pressing Win+R on your keyboard.
• Then in the dialog box, type in the following.

• After that, click on OK.

• As a result, this will open up the location folder of the cache. Now select all and delete the files from the file explorer.

This will clear all the caches and fix the freezes if those are caused by the caches.

Solution 5: Examine Issues with Add-ins

Sometimes Add-ins may cause the freezes in Excel. To investigate if it is caused by any and what is causing it, follow these steps.

Steps:

• First of all, you need to open Excel in safe mode. To do that, open up the Run command dialog by pressing Win+R and type in Excel/safe. Then click on OK.

• Now, open up the Excel file and go to the File tab, and select Options from the left side of the preview screen.

• Then in the Excel Options box, select the Add-ins tab.
• After that, select COM Add-ins in the Manage field and click on Go.

• Uncheck all of the add-ins in the COM Add-ins box and then click on OK.

Now try copying and pasting again and see if the issue resolves. If these steps resolve the issue, repeat all the steps and select one add-in at a time and then copy and paste into Excel. As a result, you will find out the add-in creating the issue for you.

If it doesn’t solve the freezes in Excel while copying and pasting, then try other solutions.

Solution 6: Disable Hardware Graphics Acceleration

The extra processing power required for Excel animation can overload the application. And that’s why Excel freezes when performing operations like copying and pasting. Try these steps to disable this graphic acceleration feature to see if this resolves the issue.

Steps:

• At first, click on the File tab on your ribbon.
• Then select Options from the left of the preview screen.

• After that, go to the Advanced tab in the Excel Options box.
• Then under Display, uncheck the Disable hardware graphics acceleration option.

• Finally, click on OK.

This will disable the graphic acceleration option. If the freezes are caused by system overloading, this may resolve the issue. If not, move on to other solutions.

Solution 7: Uncheck Show Cut, Copy and Paste Options

Disabling the visibility options in the cut, copy, and paste section resolves the issue for some users. Follow these steps to do so.

Steps:

• First of all, go to the File tab on your ribbon.
• Then select Options from the left side of the preview window.

• After that, go to the Advanced tab in the Excel Options.
• Under Cut, copy and paste segment, uncheck the Show Paste Options button when content is pasted, and Show insert Options buttons options.

• Finally, click on OK.

Now check if Excel freezes when copying and pasting. If it still does, try other solutions from the list.

Solution 8: Repair Microsoft Office Applications

Sometimes Excel freezes when copying and pasting can be caused by some underlying problems. If you repair Microsoft office applications this may sometimes resolve the issue.

Steps:

• To repair, go to the Settings from the windows icon at the bottom-left of your screen.
• Then select Apps.

• After that, click on the Apps & Features from the left of the window.

• Then select your Microsoft Office app and click on Modify under it.

• Now click on Yes if a user account control box appears.
• Next, select Quick Repair or Online Repair depending on the one you prefer, and click on Repair.

This will sometimes resolve the freeze issue while copying and pasting. If this doesn’t work for you, we still have other solutions that will come in handy.

Solution 9: Change Default Printer

Some users have reported changing the default printer from the control panel has worked for them to eliminating Excel freezes when copying and pasting. If your default printer is an offline network printer, change it to OneNote or other options like that from the Devices and Printers option from the control panel. Hopefully, this will resolve the issue and copying and pasting becomes instantaneous.

Solution 10: Perform Selective Startup

Apps conflicting with each other is a very common issue in windows. As a result, some operations of one application get blocked or delayed by another. If this is the case for you that is causing Excel freezes when copying and pasting, try finding out the problem application first and disabling it. When you start up windows, some applications get started by default. If you have literally no other applications running with the Excel file, more often than not, one of those startup apps is conflicting with Excel operations.

To perform selective startup to find out the conflicting app follow these steps.

Steps:

• First of all, open up Task Manager by pressing Ctrl+Shift+Esc on your keyboard.
• Then go to the Startup
• After that right-click on each application and select Disable and copy-paste in the Excel file to find if the issue is resolved.

• Repeat this process for all the startup apps.

If this doesn’t resolve the problem, try out other solutions.

Solution 11: Use Different Printers and Video Drivers

When you open Excel, it uses the default printer and video drivers to display Excel sheets in the workbook. Excel is generally this driver-intensive app. Also, it slows down while displaying certain views like Page Break Preview View. If the driver is the problem causing freezes when copying and pasting, change the printers and video drivers to other ones like the Microsoft XPS Document Writer printer driver. This will resolve the freezing incidents that may occur when copying and pasting.

Solution 12: Install Latest Updates

If any of the above steps aren’t working try searching for Microsoft office updates and stay up to date with the software. Sometimes the little bugs and irregularities get eliminated by new updates. if the Excel freezes when copying and pasting are caused by one, the updates will fix it right away. Then again, if you are up to date with the updates, then it might be time for a clean reinstallation of the software.

Solution 13: Scan for Viruses

Sometimes virus infections can cause Excel operations to interrupt. Therefore causes it to freeze when you copy and paste, like other operations. So try scanning your system with good antivirus software and then start in safe mode. Later, try copying and pasting in Excel and see if it gets frozen. In case your issue is caused by a virus, it will get fixed as soon as you deal with it.

Conclusion

So these were all the possible solutions for Excel freezes when copying and pasting. If you still find the Excel to be lagging, freezing, or crashing when you copy or paste, it might be time to contact Microsoft support. Hopefully, this has resolved your problem.

Related Articles

• [Fixed!] Excel Not Responding When Deleting Rows
• Fix Excel Not Responding and Save Your Work
• Excel Not Responding When Opening File
• [Fixed!] Excel Keeps Crashing When Opening File
• [Fixed!] Excel Not Responding When Running Macro
• How to Fix When Excel Not Responding Without Losing Data
• How to Fix Excel Not Responding Without Closing

<< Go Back to Excel Not Responding | Excel Files | Learn Excel