How can I get Excel 2011 to stop opening my Personal Macro Workbook?

Question

Ever since I created a couple of macros in Excel for Mac 2011, the Personal Macro Workbook opens every time I open Excel. How do I keep that from happening?

I have since deleted the macros, but I still get the workbook popping up every time I open the program. It's an annoyance, more than anything, but one I'd like to eliminate.

Answer 1

On Excel 2010 for Windows you can hide a given workbook (View tab, Hide) and it stays hidden when you restart Excel. Try that.

Answer 2

While viewing the Personal workbook, go to Mac's Excel 2011 "Window" in the menu bar and it should show that Personal is checked. If not, check it. Then use Hide in that same menu. This works through a restart.

Gleaned from source: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/mac/forum/macoffice2011-macexcel/excel-for-mac-personal-macro-workbook-locked-for/e9727ba3-7e9f-41dd-875b-6c304388968c

DO NOT DELETE the Personal workbook. It contains your macros and all kinds of stuff. Deleting it will cause Excel to make a new one but your macros won't be there. Yes it will make Excel not show it, but only because the default for Personal is to not show it.

I also see that the OP Stuart posted this earlier, but it was a short sub-entry so I didn't see it until after posting this. I would have deleted my post but I thought the reason for not removing the Personal workbook should be noted.

Answer 3

The solution regarding deleting the macro workbook worked for me, but the instructions need to be adapted for the Mac (the poster is referring to Windows, but the OP asked about Excel 2011, which is a product for the Mac).

The file path containing the personal macros workbook on the Mac is:

/Users/[your user name]/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Office/Excel

Removing the personal macros workbook from here solved the problem of Excel showing the personal macros workbook every time that Excel 2011 starts.

Answer 4

Delete the file from my system. Path C: Users > "User ID Here" > AppData > Roaming > Microsoft > Excel > XLSTART: Personal.

And use "This workbook" as macro store in option.

Answer 5

I had the same problem, but the solution above didn't work.

I found that some Excel add-ins were preventing me from hiding to the personal macro workbook.

After I disabled them, I retried the steps above and everything worked great.

Answer 6

With my upgrade to 2013 Office Pro I started having the same issue when opening an Excel file from the network. I did unhide on the blank instance of Excel and it was the personal workbook. After saving all my VBA scripts as notepad++ files I deleted all the modules.

This did not help either, however, now that I no longer need the personal workbook in VBA I deleted the file from my system. Path C: Users > "User ID Here" > AppData > Roaming > Microsoft > Excel > XLSTART: Personal

Now when I open Excel files from the network, or double click, the app opens only 1 instance.

:-)