Excel fails to open and crashes on new mac devices

IrtizaA wrote:

Can it be a generic problem with excel ?? I was using my Macbook to work on excel. i can open the files here but when i copy paste or do anything, the app crashes. It is really strange. Wasting a lot of time.

Q - Description: Excel keep on crashing every time I open a new file, old file or just click on excel icon

A - We see no reference to Microsoft One Drive  in the report 

A - Would be correct to conclude the Excel files you are working on are located in Dropbox 

A - We do see that Dropbox is “ (Not signed - installed 2025-08-25) 

A - you may consider updating or upGrading Dropbox to a version specifically designed for Sequoia 

Q - User Launch Agents:

  [Not Loaded] com.dropbox.DropboxUpdater.wake.plist (Dropbox, Inc. - installed 2025-08-25)

    Command: ~/Library/Application Support/Dropbox/DropboxUpdater/Current/DropboxUpdater.app/Contents/MacOS/DropboxUpdater --wake-all --enable-logging --vmodule=*/components/update_client/*=2,*/chrome/updater/*=2

Q - [Not Loaded] com.dropbox.dropboxmacupdate.agent.plist (Not signed - installed 2025-08-25)

Q - [Not Loaded] com.dropbox.dropboxmacupdate.xpcservice.plist (Not signed - installed 2025-08-25)

Q - User Login Items:

  [Not Loaded] NordVPNLauncher (App Store - installed 2025-09-08)

Q -  File providers:

    [Loaded] Dropbox - /Applications/Dropbox.app

Q -  Share services:

    [Loaded] Dropbox Transfer - /Applications/Dropbox.app

Q -  VPNs:

    [Loaded] NordWhisper - /Applications/NordVPN.app

    [Loaded] NordLynx - /Applications/NordVPN.app

    [Loaded] OpenVPNTunnel - /Applications/NordVPN.app

A - Commercial VPNs 

They may not be what one believes they are doing for the computer and what they actually are doing behind the scenes They may also reduce you Internet Speeds by upwards of 30% 

https://gist.github.com/joepie91/5a9909939e6ce7d09e29

VPN: What you need to know - Apple Community

Suggestion: running Etrecheck in normal boot mode may show more details.

Office 365 is a "phone home" suite. Your VPN may have interfered with that.

Can it be a generic problem with excel ??

I think that were there broad issues in Excel, we would see more complaints or encounter reports here, including among the senior members responding. We have Office 365 running on an M4 Pro Macbook Pro and an M4 iMac with zero issues since installing in March. Very stable

Also how can i get Office 2019?

The real issue with 2019 is that MS have a nasty habit of taking down the activation servers for older version of Office. You can have all the proper credentials and still not be able to activate it. Been there; done that; got mad.

There are not as many Office users here as one might think. Avoid MS support—it's too Windows-centric— but instead go to their user forums like Apple's. I've found them very useful if I filter results to Mac topics, or include "mac" in searches.

Also be sure to include "Mac" in your post title. Example: "365 Excel crashing on M4 Macs, OS 15.6"

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/tags/831/m365-office

IrtizaA wrote:

Also how can i get Office 2019? I dont want to waste money on 365 then.

We have thousands of Mac at my workplace and they all have Excel running and working.

However I don't believe any are on the 2019 version, which is outdated and no longer supported by Microsoft.

You mentioned two brand new Macs are affected by your problem. Did you freshly install Office on them or did you migrate from an older Mac? Migrations of MS-Office do not always work well on Macs and as a precaution I have always done a fresh remove and re-install of all Office applications after a migration. I have done this maybe 10-15 times, always successfully.

If you don't have the original install package for Office 2019, I'm not sure how you can proceed other than obtain Office 2021 or 2024 or the Microsoft-365 subscription. I'm not even certain whether Microsoft's servers will even allow a new installation of the 2019 Office suite anymore. The Microsoft-365 subscription has the advantage that it is fully supported and you always have the latest version, latest bug fixes, and latest security updates. In the long run a subscription may cost more but you do avoid hassles like this. These hassles waste a lot of time, how much is your time worth? If you really want to avoid a subscription, the Office 2024 purchase may be the best option (Office 2021 will become obsolete soon).

Also, deleting the VPN might not be enough, you may need to run a full uninstaller from Nord, especially if it was also migrated from an older system.

I can not provide " permanent solution to this issue. "

Though, I can offer some trouble shooting suggestions

Restart in Safe Mode. This will perform a Disk Repair, clear cache files and only load Apple Software, extensions and fonts. The boot up will be slow and can take some time - Normal.

Safe Mode will also eliminate Third Party Software, extensions and drivers from loading. It will only load the Minimum amount of Core Apple Processes to allow the the computer to function at a reduced Level of Performance 

Does the issue present in this mode ?

If not - there could be something in the main User Account playing up. To further isolate this - Set up users, guests, and groups on Mac. Then log out of the Main User account and log into the dummy account and test again if the issue persists.

If the issue is present in the dummy account - then, this appears to be a System Wide issue on the computer.

To avoid a session of Q&A, Q&A  and Q&A  

Download the Application Etrecheck  ( External Link ) directly from the Developer.

The Application is Not a " Silver Bullet "  and is  only a tool to examine the Hardware / Software used on this computer 

This is a Diagnostic Tool that makes no changes to the computer Hardware / Software used on this computer 

The application is free or paid from added features. 

The Report will Not Reveal Any Personal Information. 

Post back the Full Report - copy and paste - >>>> using the Additional Text Icon ( 3rd Icon to last ) <<<<

Can it be a generic problem with excel ??

I doubt it. There aren’t multitudes of posts like yours. I only have 2019 which I stopped updating because well before it was converted to 365. It doesn’t crash on my M4 Pro Mini nor my M2 Pro MacBook Pro.

I would uninstall Excel, go into your Application Support folder and remove all Microsoft support files, and delete any Containers or Group Containers used by Office. All of those folders are in your user Library (hold down Option key and select Library from the Go menu). Then, reinstall Excel/Office.

IrtizaA wrote:

So you suggest me to unistall the enitre microsoft app and then reinstall it??

Yes, but also the extra stuff that won’t be uninstalled. I agree with Owl-53 that it may be something in your user account. If you just delete the Containers, they will likely be rebuilt. Same for any Application Support files. So you may just start there.

Their licensing support and the update support is installed as a launchd item, but could be removed manually. While you can remove the update checker, it won’t run without the licensing support.

I don’t think you can buy 2019 anymore. However, there are gobs of people claiming 365 crashes, so whatever is broken in your user account won’t be fixed by installing 2019.

IrtizaA wrote:

Also how can i get Office 2019? I dont want to waste money on 365 then.

Even if it were possible to get Office 2019

MS only supports the last 3 versions of macOS

Once macOS 26 Tahoe is released, planned for Monday Sept 15, 2025

Your M4 Mac Mini would qualify for the upGrade

What exactly happens when creating a Test / Dummy account

Does the Excel issue persist

This would dovetail in @Barney-15E " may be something in your user account "

" One thing you might try to potentially sidestep Excel referring to its last saved execution state (e.g. crash) is to press and hold the shift key while launching Excel. This may (or may not) trick it into launching without crashing. "

I love that, the old Safe Launch of the application 😎🦉

My main desktop is a M4 Mac Mini Pro running Sequoia v15.6.1. I had Office 2021 for Mac Home and Business installed and kept current. I have never had any of the Office applications crash or even misbehave. They are automatically kept current by AutoUpdate. I do not use Microsoft OneDrive, Dropbox, and rarely store any Microsoft documents on iCloud.

I just replaced (completely removed) the preceding Office 2021 solution with Office 2024 for Mac Home, and again, no issues with the applications at version 16.100.4.

Have you recently installed any third-party Excel Add-ins or created a Visual Basic macro from code you copied from the Internet? I see you installed the Spreadsheet-xlsx&csv editor (3.5) from the Mac App Store. Did it insert anything into Excel? I have never massaged Excel spreadsheets with an external spreadsheet editor.

One thing you might try to potentially sidestep Excel referring to its last saved execution state (e.g. crash) is to press and hold the shift key while launching Excel. This may (or may not) trick it into launching without crashing.

When I have been really pressed, used LibreOffice

Otherwise stick to Keynote, Pages and Numbers

Thank you

Working through the report and will get back to you