What is the maximum allowed rows in a Microsoft Excel .xls or .xlsx

Is there a limit? I couldn't find one posted.

Andy

Posted 2011-12-09T21:06:00.607

Reputation: 832

1Hmmmm.....doesn't this depend on whether 32-bit or 64-bit version is being used? – mdpc – 2016-12-20T23:18:05.720

Answers

118

Have a look at this link** and this one (and this for 2013). A quick summary:

+-----------------+-----------+--------------+---------------------+
|                 | Max. Rows | Max. Columns | Max. Cols by letter |
+-----------------+-----------+--------------+---------------------+
| Excel 365*      | 1,048,576 | 16,384       | XFD                 |
| Excel 2013      | 1,048,576 | 16,384       | XFD                 |
| Excel 2010      | 1,048,576 | 16,384       | XFD                 |
| Excel 2007      | 1,048,576 | 16,384       | XFD                 |
| Excel 2003      | 65,536    | 256          | IV                  |
| Excel 2002 (XP) | 65,536    | 256          | IV                  |
| Excel 2000      | 65,536    | 256          | IV                  |
| Excel 97        | 65,536    | 256          | IV                  |
| Excel 95        | 16,384    | 256          | IV                  |
| Excel 5         | 16,384    | 256          | IV                  |
+-----------------+-----------+--------------+---------------------+

*Excel 365 unverified.

**This (web archive) link probably will not work with your browser, but the information is in the page source.

Jason Down

Posted 2011-12-09T21:06:00.607

Reputation: 1 641

14Links are apparently dead. This answer, though it does in fact provide most of the information, indicates the limitations of Excel, and not of the supported file formats xls or xlsx. The limitations of xls is still 256 columns and 65536 rows, if you use that file format in a newer Excel version. – Lasse V. Karlsen – 2015-05-29T09:11:24.907

2@LasseV.Karlsen: Thanks for the update. It looks like the second link is still alive, but I have noted that the first link is dead. – Jason Down – 2015-05-29T17:19:59.930

MS doesn't seem to have the 2003 and before specs anymore, but on Wayback you can sort of get to them... http://web.archive.org/web/20080313035725/http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel/HP051992911033.aspx?mode=print for example (I edited that in).

– Joe – 2015-06-03T22:11:15.023

You can find out how many rows your version of Excel supports by opening a new file in Excel then pressing CTRL + Down Arrow in an empty worksheet.

This number of rows can be saved in the default format that version of Excel supports (e.g. XLSX).

However, you will not necessarily be able to save in the older XLS format, which is still limited to 65,536 rows. Typing in a cell in row number 1048576 (e.g. A1048576) then saving to XLS format will cause a warning. If you close and re-open this file, you will then find this cell empty.

Tuan

Posted 2011-12-09T21:06:00.607

Reputation: 358

Doing a web search for "maximum number of rows in Excel" gives a link (several, actually) with

Starting in Excel 2007, the "Big Grid" increases the maximum number of rows per worksheet from 65,536 to over 1 million, and the number of columns from 256 (IV) to 16,384 (XFD).

Rook

Posted 2011-12-09T21:06:00.607

Reputation: 21 622