Everything you need to know about The disk is full error in Excel

The error The disk is full in Excel is a common error due to full memory. In Microsoft Excel when you save your workbook you will get this message and of course the document will not be saved. If you are also facing memory errors then this article is for you. 

Instructions to determine the cause and how to fix Excel reporting insufficient memory error. 

Cause of error The disk is full in Excel

The disk is full error appears when you save your work window to a drive that doesn't have enough free space. Excel error there isn't enough memory to complete this action is also in this case. This error means: excel error does not have enough memory to complete this action. It is common when you open a work window saved from a floppy disk and then add additional file sizes to the same drive.

Specific causes of The disk is full error in Excel include: 

1. You have stored too many data files on the drive. From there, the free space gradually decreases and Excel will display an error warning that memory is full. 
2. Temporary files and caches take up a large amount of disk space. 
3. Advance data of applications reduces free space and does not allow storage. 

Basically, to fix this error, you need to free up free space on the drive by deleting unnecessary files, moving data, or upgrading storage disk capacity. 

How to fix Excel reporting insufficient memory error

To fix The disk is full error in Excel, you can try the following: 

1. Delete unnecessary files

This requires time consuming consideration to check and delete unnecessary files. 

First, make sure your drive is not really full. Open This PC/My Computer to check the disk drive. 

If the disk bar turns red it means it's too full to save any files.

1. Move files to another drive

Excel's hard drive is so full that it cannot be stored, which can occur due to low disk space. If you want to save a file to a floppy disk, you first need to save the file to the hard disk and then copy it to the floppy disk. 

1. Upgrade storage drive

You can refer to upgrading the drive to a larger capacity. If your work requires large storage spaces and deleting or moving files is inconvenient, the best option is still to upgrade the storage drive. 

1. Turn off working windows

The memory full error can occur when you save a document too many times. Try closing and reopening the workbook every 20 saves to avoid problems. 

Limiting file sharing, removing space saving limits, checking drive connectivity are some other possible solutions. 

What if you still have problems? At this point, it's best to contact technical support. 

Note that Microsoft Excel avoids the error The disk is full

When working in a file Microsoft Excel saves the file with a temporary filename in the same folder as the original file. 

When you finish working and save the file: 

1. The original file is deleted
2. The file is temporarily renamed with the original file name

This means that the free space on the drive must be 2 times larger than the size of the file to be saved. 

For example: 

Your open Excel working window is 700KB, then when you make changes, you add 10KB to the temporary file. So the required free drive size is 710KB x 2. It may take a little more for Excel to continue working with this file. 

There is also a common memory error that occurs when opening the device. Also known as Not Enough Memory to Run Microsoft Excel error on Windows. Appears when you click to open Excel but does not run it. The best way is to free up cache and free space to run normally again. 

That's it: How to fix The disk is full error in Excel. Hope one of these solutions can help you get rid of your memory trouble.

Samuel Daniel

Update 08 December 2023