Compress Excel files quickly and reliably
Reduce Excel file size with our Excel Compressor for Windows and Mac. Fast, reliable compressor with no size limits, and you can compress multiple files at once.
- Instant download — no email required
- Over 3 million users worldwide
- 14-day free trial
Trusted by 3+ million happy customers
“NXPowerLite is incredible! As a Business Analyst, I frequently work with large Excel and PPT files. Thanks to this software, I am able to condense & email them with ease!”
— Julie Terrell
Software features
Compress Excel File more than 100mb
Many online compressors have file size limits - NXPowerLite Desktop has no maximum file size limit - so you can compress 50mb, 200mb or larger files with ease.
Compress Excel File Offline
Compress Excel files on your local Windows or Mac computer, without the need for an Internet connection. It's 100% offline software.
Compress Excel File For Email
No more bounce backs with large emails. Our simple Excel compressor automatically reduces email attachments so they fit within mailbox limits.
Compress Multiple Excel Files
Save time and effort compressing multiple spreadsheets, compress up to 10,000 Excel files at once.
Compress Excel File to Zip
NXPowerLite will usually shrink Excel files smaller than Zip - but you can also zip Excel files together with NXPowerLite too.
Microsoft Office Integration
Compress Excel spreadsheets from within Excel. Just save your file then use optimize in the Add-Ins tab located in the ribbon.
Trusted Excel Compressor Software
NXPowerLite was first released in 2001 and has continued to be regularly improved ever since. It is super-reliable and backed by beyond-responsive support.
File Format unchanged
Compressed Excel files stay in the same format with the same .XLSX file extension.
Windows or Mac
Shrink Excel files directly from Explorer or Finder for maximum ease. Simply right-click on one or more files and choose from the optimization options.
I use NXPowerLite almost every day to shrink the size of Excel and PowerPoint documents so I can send them through email. It also works great with sending pictures through email because it automatically reduces the size after I attach larger picture files to the email.
— Chet Willey
How to compress Excel files with our Compressor
Frequently Asked Questions
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The most common reasons that Excel files get too big are:
Images
Excess Cell Formatting
Big Data
Pivot-Table Cache
Embedded Objects
External Links
Read our blog post on why Excel files get too large for more details and help.
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Compress up to 10,000 Excel files at a time. Great for compressing small folders of content quickly.
For larger volumes of files we recommend our Server Compressor software.
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Yes, we offer a fully functional 14-day free trial without any sign-up. Once installed, your trial will be automatically activated, and it'll work just like the full software without adding any watermarks. The only limitation is a batch size of 20 files, compared to the 10,000 files that the paid version can compress.
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NXPowerLite Desktop costs just $57 one-off cost for a single user.
NXPowerLite is licensed per user rather than per machine, so if you buy a license you can install it on up to 3 machines so long as you are the only user of the software.
Licenses are perpetual, so they don't expire. Once you buy a license you can use that major version of the software for as long as you want without paying additional fees.
Volume discounts start at 10 users, so the more licences you buy the less you pay per user. Visit our support site for more information on multi-user licensing.
If you work at a non-profit then simply email us with your work email address to verify your details and we will send you a discount code.
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Windows
Windows 7 and above
NXPowerLite integrates with 32 & 64-bit versions of the following applications (Versions 2007 - 2024 & M365):
Microsoft PowerPoint
Microsoft Word
Microsoft Excel
NXPowerLite can automatically optimize email attachments in the following email clients:
Microsoft Outlook (2007 - 2024 & M365) [32-bit & 64-bit]
macOS
macOS 26 (Tahoe)
macOS 15 (Sequoia)
macOS 14 (Sonoma)
macOS 13 (Ventura)
Version 10.0.2 supports macOS 11 - 14
Version 9 supports macOS 10.15 - 13
Version 8 supports macOS 10.12 - 10.14
Version 7 supports macOS OS X 10.10 & 10.11
Version 6 supports OS X 10.9 or earlier.
How the Excel Compressor works
Microsoft Excel files can contain a diverse range of content that can secretly drive up the file size; from Images to PivotTable Cache and even invisible excess cell formatting. NXPowerLite can selectively optimize each of these elements within the spreadsheets to create leaner, smaller Workbooks.
Clean excess cell formatting
Formatting cells on your worksheet can make the right information easy to see at a glance, but formatting cells that aren't being used (especially entire rows and columns) can cause your workbook's file size to grow quickly. This can slow down not just Excel, but the overall performance of your computer when you have an excessively formatted worksheet open. Excessive formatting can also cause printing problems in Excel. The NXPowerLite Excel Compressor can clear excess cell formatting for you automatically.
Resize images and choose efficient format
Images are often inserted into Microsoft Excel files at much larger sizes than necessary. For example, a photograph taken by a digital camera might contain ten million or more pixels, but most of this detail will not be visible unless ‘zoom’ controls are used. NXPowerLite can scale down such images to a more reasonable size, sufficient for viewing and printing purposes.
NXPowerLite will also choose the most efficient format for each image, converting from larger formats like TIFF etc. to JPEG or PNG where it will realise a reduction in size without compromising the quality.
Reduce the color depth of PNG images
It’s possible to significantly reduce the file size of images saved in the PNG format by reducing the number of colors they include. NXPowerLite can reduce the colors used by PNGs to reduce their size - usually with no visual difference to the images.
Flatten embedded objects
Embedded objects (e.g. a PDF report embedded in an Excel sheet) are often saved with a 'picture' representation as well as the source PDF document in this example. NXPowerLite can flatten embedded objects removing the source file, leaving the picture representation in place.
If NXPowerLite is unable to reduce your file, then it is probably because it contains some content that NXPowerLite is unable to compress yet. In this case it will link you to our guide how to manually compress your Excel file.