Add-ins for Excel on Mac: Unlocking Native Performance

As we continue to focus on empowering you to build your own capabilities into software used by millions of people worldwide, we're excited to announce that our Office Add-ins platform makes it easy to extend Excel and get your data into the hands of users across Windows, Mac, and the web. With the latest release, Microsoft has taken a significant step forward in enhancing the performance and energy efficiency of Excel on Apple Silicon machines.

In recent years, our community has developed an impressive breadth and depth of solutions on top of Excel. However, with the transition from Intel-based to Arm-based Macs, some users have had to rely on Rosetta 2, a temporary solution that allows existing Intel-based programs to run on new machines. This technology translates x86-64 code into native Arm code at launch, resulting in a slight performance hit.

Fortunately, Microsoft has released an updated version of Office for Mac, which includes an Excel app with 100% native support for Apple Silicon machines. This means that users can now run Excel natively on their devices without relying on the Rosetta 2 translation layer. For those using Macs powered by Apple's M1-series processors, this update brings better performance and energy efficiency when working with Excel spreadsheets, particularly those utilizing the Power Query function.

The new version of Office for Mac also includes native support for Power Query in Excel, making it fully supported on devices with Apple Silicon CPUs. This is a significant development, as Power Query is a powerful tool that enables users to connect to various data sources and create complex queries.

To take advantage of these improvements, simply start an Office application like Word or Excel, choose Help -> Check for Updates, and install the latest version. If you previously used Rosetta emulator to run Excel, you can now disable it and enjoy native performance on your device.

With this update, Microsoft continues to demonstrate its commitment to delivering high-performance, user-friendly solutions that cater to the evolving needs of users worldwide. As we move forward, we're excited to see how our community will continue to build innovative add-ins for Excel, taking advantage of these new capabilities and further enhancing the productivity and efficiency of our users.

Add ins excel mac