Why cant i download excel files

Approved By Alexis Llontop. Min Reading 5 Min. Also, different methods as well as workarounds to fix the issue and to open the older XLS format spreadsheets in Excel or later versions. From Excel and later, a new XLSX format was introduced by Microsoft that is much secure and better at storing data. However, this problem may also occur even after a minor MS Office or Windows update.

The software is free to download and lets you scan the damaged XLS file. Watch this video to know more,. Fortunately, there are many fixes and troubleshooting methods that you can follow to fix this issue and open the XLS files in Excel Steps are as follows,.

Then, view the drive location under Current location. If the drive location is C:, you can close this window and move to the next workaround. If not, continue performing the following operations. Step 5: Click the Move folder button under Current location and select a folder in drive C:. After selecting a folder, click the OK button to save the change. Step 2: Switch to the Security tab, click the Internet icon, and click the Custom level… button.

Step 3: Scroll to Downloads and make sure all options are enabled. Step 4: If you make certain changes, save the changes, and then restart your computer. Here take Google Chrome for example. When data and cache have been removed from Google Chrome, check whether you can download your files now. If you still fail to download anything, please reinstall Google Chrome.

Detailed guides for how to clear cache for one specific site in Chrome, Firefox, Microsoft Edge, Safari, Opera browser, etc.

Networking faults can be a symptom of virus infection. How to perform a virus scan? You can try Windows Defender. Windows Defender is a Windows built-in antimalware product that is preinstalled on your computer. Follow the steps below to run this product for virus scan. Step 5: Click the Advanced link, choose Full scan , and click the Scan now button. If your computer is infected with viruses, Windows Defender will remove it and you will be able to download files from the Internet again.

Is Windows Defender enough? If you have doubts about this question, please read this post carefully. Through the text, you may find the answer. There is a chance that programs on your computer like third-party antivirus, Windows Defender, and Windows Firewall block certain files from downloading.

So, in this case, you need to disable these programs. To disable third-party antivirus, generally you need to right-click the program icon on the Windows taskbar and then choose the Disable option to disable it temporarily.

You can run the SFC tool to repair these files. Step 2: Open the Firefox menu by clicking the three-striped button. To test for and eliminate the possibility that a third-party Excel add-in or file is causing a "save" problem in Excel, try to save the file in Safe mode.

To do this, follow these steps:. As Excel starts, press and hold Ctrl until you receive a message that resembles the following:. Excel has detected that you are holding down the Ctrl key. Do you want to start Excel in safe mode? Open a new Excel workbook, and try to save it. If that works, try again to save the problem file. If the file now saves correctly, a custom add-in or a file that is located in an Excel startup location is most likely the cause.

You must locate and remove the add-in or the file to eliminate the problem. After you determine which add-in or file caused the problem, contact the vendor for additional information or an update that resolves the problem.

For more information about Microsoft Excel safe mode, press F1 in Excel to open the Help menu, type safe mode in the Search box, and then select Search to view the topic. For more information about how to determine the folders that Excel uses during startup, and additional options to disable this functionality, see the following articles:. When you save an Excel file, you must have the following permissions to the folder in which you are saving the file:.

This error message is displayed if you try to make changes to a file to which you have only read permissions. This is because the administrator or the owner of the file has not granted you permission to edit the file.

The process was interrupted while it tried to create a temporary file, possibly because of one of the following reasons:. The original file is still intact. Unless your computer or workstation failed, the version of the file that contains your current changes is still open in memory. The process was interrupted while it was deleting the original file or renaming the temporary file. In this case, your original file is deleted although the temporary file may be readable.

If your computer or workstation failed, use the temporary file. If the interruption was caused by something else, the version of the file that contains your current changes is still open in memory. Save the file to an alternative drive. When you save to any medium, such as a hard disk, an external storage drive, or a network drive, you must make sure that the disk has sufficient free space to enable the file to save.

If the destination does not have sufficient space, Excel cannot complete the "save" operation, and you receive the following error message:. When antivirus software is installed or is running, you may receive an error message when you try to save an existing workbook, but not when you try to save a new file.

You may receive the error message because some antivirus programs quickly scan any new files that appear on a computer. This scan can sometimes interrupt the Excel "save" process and may stop Excel from saving the file correctly. To check whether your antivirus software conflicts with Excel, temporarily deactivate the antivirus software, and then try to save the Excel file. If you and a second user work concurrently on a shared workbook, you may receive an error message if you and the second user try to save the file at the same time.

You receive an error message because Excel cannot save the file if another instance of Excel is saving the same file. For more information about this error message, see Unlock a file that has been locked for editing. If you try to save or open an Excel file, and the path of that file including the file name is more than characters, you may receive the following error message:.

For more information, see Error message when you open or save a file in Microsoft Excel: "Filename is not valid". For more information, see Description of the way that Excel saves files. For example, the local antivirus software locks the temporary file for scanning before the file can be renamed. Therefore, you should track all new software installations and updates. Information about such processes that were run before you experienced this problem can be helpful if this article does not fix your problem and you have to contact Microsoft Support.

If none of the causes that are listed in this article apply to your situation, or you still can't save workbooks, try the following options to save your Excel files.