The Problem with Automatic External Links
If you have an Excel workbook that relies on data pulled from other spreadsheets (external links), Excel will often display a security warning pop-up asking if you want to update the links every single time you open the file. In some configurations, it might even try to update those links automatically without asking, which can cause the spreadsheet to freeze for several minutes while it searches the network for the source files. If you just want to view the last saved state of the document without waiting for a data refresh, this is incredibly frustrating.
How to Disable the Link Update Prompt
You can instruct Excel to ignore external links upon startup, allowing the workbook to open instantly using the cached data from the last time it was saved.
1. Open the affected Excel workbook.
2. Click on the Data tab in the ribbon at the top of the screen.
3. Look for the “Queries & Connections” group and click the Edit Links button. (If this button is greyed out, your workbook does not actually contain any active external links).
4. In the Edit Links dialogue box, click the Startup Prompt… button in the bottom-left corner.
5. A new window will appear with three options. Select the third option: Don’t display the alert and don’t update automatic links.
6. Click OK, then close the Edit Links window.
Updating the Data Manually
By applying this setting, the workbook will now open silently and instantaneously every time. The external links are not broken; they are simply paused. When you actually need the freshest data, you can update the links manually at your own convenience. Simply return to the Data tab, click Edit Links, highlight the source files in the list, and click the Update Values button on the right-hand side.