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How to Make Excel the Default Spreadsheet App in Mac

In this thread: Set Excel as default instead of Numbers - Apple Community instructions were given to make excel the default spreadsheet on a Mac, even when opening a Numbers document. I'm finding that this doesn't work now. After going through all the steps, when opening a numbers doc, it opens in numbers, which I prefer not to use.


Right clicking on the doc and opening with excel doesn't work either. It's not an option and it's greyed out in the apps I can use for this purpose.


Does anyone have a fix?


Thanks.


MacBook Pro (2020 and later)

Posted on Jun 24, 2022 12:59 AM

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Posted on Jun 24, 2022 2:17 AM

FWIW, the thread you referred to does not say you can set Excel to open Numbers documents. It describes how to set Excel as the default for "spreadsheets", i.e. xls, xlsm, xlmx files. Excel cannot open Numbers files.

6 replies

Jun 24, 2022 2:34 AM in response to nickcage49

Look into: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/file-formats-that-are-supported-in-excel-0943ff2c-6014-4e8d-aaea-b83d51d46247

It is a list of file formats that are supported by excel.


You may need to use export tool to convert the numbers document to compatible formats with excel

Convert Numbers spreadsheets to PDF, Microsoft Excel, and more - Apple Support


Hope it helps.

How to Make Excel the Default Spreadsheet App in Mac

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