Excel for the web gets quicker and smoother with its latest update

What you need to know

• Excel on the web recently received major performance improvements.
• The update improves loading, scrolling, cell selection, and more.
• The improvements should be generally available now.

Microsoft Excel on the web received major performance improvements earlier this week. The Excel experience should be faster and smoother in several key areas, including loading, scrolling, cell selection, and navigating. Overall, Excel on the web should feel more native and less laggy.

A Tech Community post from Microsoft outlines all of the improvements:

• Loading – We've significantly reduced the time it takes to load a workbook, making it faster for you to start working in Excel for the web.
• Scrolling – Scrolling is a fundamental part of working in Excel. Now, even in incredibly complex sheets, scrolling is smooth and fast.
• Selection – Even more fundamental than scrolling, is the need to interact with content in your workbook. We have optimized the speed of cell selection, so you'll experience less lag and a more fluid experience when working in the grid.
• Navigating - We optimized several navigation actions: find/search, Go-To, page-up and page-down are all now faster.
• Modifying - We developed faster cell editing and formatting experiences.

Excel for the web is free, though if you want to take full advantage of Excel, such as syncing spreadsheets across devices, you'll want a Microsoft 365 account.

The improvements to Excel on the web started rolling out on Monday, January 25, 2021, so you should see them now.