Sometimes it might not be an issue with Google Sheets that’s causing the slow response time. It’s worth trying these strategies to see if any resolve your issues: > Close and re-open the Google Sheet (sometimes it’s the simplest fixes that work). > Refresh your browser. > Clear your cache and cookies. > Try another browser or operating system.
In the case of referencing different workbooks, the performance issue may not have anything to do with Google Sheets’s capabilities. The slow performance can stem from the time it takes to exchange information between sheets.
This of course begs the question “Why is google sheets so slow?”
One thought is that Google Sheets get slower as they get larger. So one of the first things to try, is to reduce the size of your Google Sheet. Blank rowscolumns slow down performance, dramatically so in fact. So it’s a good idea to delete them whenever you can, so you reduce the number of cells Google Sheets is holding in memory.
No discussion of slow Google Sheets therefore, would be complete without first discussing the size limits of Google Sheets. Google Sheets has a limit of 5 million cells per workbook (see Google file sizes).
While I was reading we ran into the query “How can I speed up my Google Sheets?”.
So one of the first things to try, is to reduce the size of your Google Sheet. Blank rows\columns slow down performance, dramatically so in fact. So it’s a good idea to delete them whenever you can, so you reduce the number of cells Google Sheets is holding in memory.
While we were writing we ran into the inquiry “Why is Google Sheets so slow on Windows 10?”.
To get Google Sheets to run at an acceptable speed, you may be looking at breaking up your data across two or more workbooks. Unfortunately, this fix means you’ll have to repeat the same work across each workbook and combine the results. Additionally, this means some analysis will be much harder.
How long does it take to compute Google Sheets data?
This took about 6.5s to compute for 100,000 rows, and about another 30s to copy and paste as values (another best practice for optimizing your slow Google Sheets – see no. 6 above ). Replacing this with Apps Script and running for the same data range took around 16s to paste in all 100,000 values, so less than half the time.
How to know if sheets are slow?
How to know if Sheets are Slow : Check for these behaviours: Calculations become very slow and loading bar appears frequently every time you make a change in the sheet. Sheets are slow to respond to mouse or keyboard clicks. Data does not show even after you have entered the same into a cell. You need to reload the sheet sometimes to have it show.
How to split up your really big Google Sheets?
In other words, it’s data we don’t envisage using again, but that we want to keep a copy of. The best approach to split up your really big Google Sheets is to make new copies, label each Sheet clearly and then delete all the data apart from the data relevant to that Sheet.