Mac OS freezes on quicklook Excel files

Same issue on a brand new 2021 M1 Macbook with no data/programs transferred from my old. Was recently also having this issue on my older 2018 intel Macbook. Certainly caused by a recent update of some kind.

I found this answer about a similar quicklook problem, and figured I would give this solution a try:

I found a workaround fixed this issue in my Mac with macOS Catalina 10.15.3.

1. 1. Open the folder with system Quick Look generators - "/System/Library/QuickLook".
   2. Copy "Office.qlgenerator" to "/Library/QuickLook" (this is folder for third-party generators).
   3. Rename "Office.qlgenerator" to any unique name - for example, "MSOffice.qlgenerator".
   4. Restart Quick Look daemon with terminal command "qlmanage -r".

I have done the above and the next two Excel files I previewed seem to be working fine again!

aliavni wrote:

Hi,

I am on macOS Big Sur 11.2.1 and trying to see the contents of some Excel files with quicklook. But trying to do this freezes the laptop and it goes back to the login screen. I try the same with a newer 16" MacBook pro, this time it does not freeze but I cannot see the file contents with quicklook.

The file is not too big. It has 149 columns and 244 rows. I tried saving the file without any functions and formatting but this did not help as well.

Does anyone have any idea why this would be happening and is there a way to solve it?

Hi aliavni,

To make sure we're on the same page, Quick Look will attempt to open a specific Excel file, but it causes the Mac to quit back to the login screen, is that correct?

If so, can you also clarify the following?

• Is this only a specific Excel file or any Excel file?
• Do you encounter this with other file types, if so, what? Such as PDFS, or .doc, etc

Additionally, take a moment to boot your Mac into safe mode, and test the issue again.

• Start up your Mac in safe mode

Let us know the results and we will continue from there.

Cheers!

I'm also having this issue on macOS Big Sur 11.2.3. It's enormously frustrating. Using Quick Look on many, but not all, Excel files results in an instantaneous slowdown, then total freeze, crash, and restart. I'm trying to remember to avoid using Quick Look on spreadsheets but when I forget, this sequence often occurs.

This doesn't seem to affect small Excel files for me. For example, I've downloaded these test Excel files and the 10, 50, and 100 row .xls and .xlsx sample files open fine in Quick Look, while the 1000 row files produce a major slowdown but I can exit out before it crashes if I'm quick, and the 5000 row files (still under 200 kb in size!) trigger the freeze/crash/restart. This doesn't affect Numbers spreadsheets, only Excel.

I created a brand new user account and the freeze/crash/restart still occurs, including after booting into Safe Mode.

I hope a fix will be found soon.

Just spent an hour with Microsoft customer service about this, they had me deinstall and reinstall Excel (along with its container files), and it did not help. I have the same issue: some files, even if not big at all, completely freeze when viewed with Quicklook on two of my computers, for a good minute (sometimes even forcing a restart). I am also looking for a solution.

Sorry to hear it didn't resolve for you. Yes, I renamed the new copy and the problem seems resolved (for now at least). My issue was a long hang, though, not a complete crash. Every excel file I tried to quick view in Mail would leave my otherwise spiffy M1 completely useless for a minute or two.

Same problem here, with a new MacBook Pro 16.

Quick look was working fine even with monster size excel macro files.

I also have parallels installed but even with that it was working fine.

It seems that on one of many OSMac updates, something broke and obviously it seems that I'm not the only one with this terrible problem. Wonder what is the cause? Like I said, for me it seems to have been either an OS update or perhaps a Microsoft Office update, either way, I'm on a MacBook PRO, let me emphasize, PRO, so I expect Apple to take the high road and solve this asap, no excuses, no finger pointing, just solve it.

Interesting. I just tried this and it didn't solve the issue for me – the crashes still happen.

Just to confirm, in step #3 ("Rename "Office.qlgenerator" to any unique name"), this is referring to the new copy of the file in /Library/QuickLook, right? I'm not able to modify or delete the original version in /System/Library/QuickLook.

The “Solution” is not to tell Apple, in its own support forum, that you will just buy another Mac, which has the same problem.

We paid for a PRO device and quicklook which worked flawlessly for many years breaking down is unacceptable. Sure it’s easy to blame MS, make excuses, ignore the customer, however Apple needs to OWN the problems of their devices. If you don’t own the problem you have lost control.

Also the day that a support forum like this starts censoring their most loyal users comments is the day that Apple loses its lead. Market cap doesn’t make you a leader, flawless service and products do.

Off topic, but so you have an idea of who you are dealing with, I put in motion the entire project for the iPad trackpad keyboard, with my comments and vision shut down by similar minded forum admins.

I am in touch with Tim and CC of this thread and this post will be forwarded.

Own the problem, provide a solution.

Thanks for sharing. Glad it worked on your system. It sounds like maybe the solution is for me to get a new M1 Mac... ;)