Microsoft Excel 16.93 — macOS

If you already work with numbers on a Mac, you know the basics of a spreadsheet grid. Microsoft Excel 16.93 for Mac builds on that familiar layout with a few additions worth looking at right away. Here are the first things a newcomer should try.

• Create a simple budget sheet – Enter income and expenses in columns, then use AutoSum to total them. The formula bar works just like you expect.
• Try the new chart types – Select a range of data, then go to Insert > Chart. Version 16.93 includes updated chart options that make trends easier to spot.
• Use Ideas – Select a data range and click the Ideas button on the Home tab. Excel suggests charts, trends, and patterns without you having to guess which function to use.
• Open a shared workbook – Excel handles .xlsx files from colleagues, cloud drives, or email attachments. Changes sync when you save.
• Pin frequently used files – In the Open dialog, right-click a recent workbook and choose Pin. It stays at the top of your list.

These few actions cover the core of what Excel does: organize numbers, visualize them, and share the result. The rest you can pick up as you go.

Formulas show as text? Check cell formatting

No spreadsheet app is immune to the occasional hiccup. Here are a few things people run into with Excel for Mac and what usually clears them up.

• Formulas show as text instead of calculating – Check that the cell isn't formatted as Text. Select the cell, go to Format > Cells, and change it to General or Number. Then re-enter the formula.
• Charts look different than on Windows – Excel for Mac renders some chart elements slightly differently. If a chart you got from a PC colleague shifts labels or colors, try resetting the chart layout from the Chart Design tab. The new chart types in 16.93 tend to carry over more consistently.
• Ideas doesn't show suggestions – Ideas needs a clean data range with headers. If your table has blank rows or merged cells, unmerge them and remove empty rows first. Ideas also needs an internet connection for some of its pattern recognition.
• Shared workbook changes don't appear – Make sure everyone saves to the same location (OneDrive, SharePoint, or a network folder). Excel for Mac uses standard co-authoring through the AutoSave feature when the file is stored in a compatible cloud location.
• File opens slowly or hangs – Very large workbooks with thousands of formulas or external links can slow down any Mac. Try turning off automatic calculation temporarily: go to Formulas > Calculation Options > Manual. Recalculate only when you need it with Command + =.

If a problem persists, a full removal and reinstall of Office, following the steps linked on the download page, often resets whatever got out of sync.

Requires macOS 13 or later, runs on Silicon and Intel

Excel 16.93 requires macOS 13 or later and runs on both Apple Silicon and Intel-based Macs. The installer handles both architectures in one package, so you don't need to pick a separate version. The app itself is a standard Office component — it installs alongside Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote if you choose the full suite, or as a standalone package from the provided links.

The interface languages cover a wide range: Russian, English, German, Hungarian, Greek, Danish, Indonesian, Spanish, Italian, Korean, Dutch, Polish, Portuguese, Slovak, Thai, Turkish, Finnish, French, Czech, Swedish, and Japanese. Switching languages requires a system-level language change or a separate language pack; Excel picks up the system default on first launch.

Activation uses the Office LTSC 2024 VL Serializer, and updates come through Microsoft AutoUpdate (MAU). Once MAU is installed, Excel checks for updates on its own schedule. You can also trigger a manual check from the Help menu.

Storage-wise, the Office suite takes up a few gigabytes — typical for a full productivity install. Excel itself is a relatively lean part of that. If you only need the spreadsheet, you can skip the other apps during installation.

New chart types and the Ideas feature

The headline additions in this build are the new chart types and the Ideas feature. For daily spreadsheet work, here is what that means:

• New chart types – A few additional chart styles have been added to the Insert > Chart menu. These cover data series that older chart types handled awkwardly. If you produce reports with mixed data (percentages alongside raw numbers, for example), the new options save you the manual formatting work.
• Ideas for data and trend visualization – Ideas is not a new concept in Excel overall, but its inclusion in this version means you can highlight a range and get suggested charts, trends, and outliers without browsing through the chart menu. It is useful for quick explorations — select your data, click Ideas, and pick the visualization that looks right.

Beyond these two, the 16.93 build includes the usual under-the-hood adjustments. Nothing else in the interface moved. If you are upgrading from an older Office LTSC release, you will notice the chart menu and the Ideas button; everything else stays where you left it.

The standard for Microsoft formats over Numbers and Calc

Excel for Mac is the standard in offices that use Microsoft formats. Two other apps come up often: Apple Numbers and LibreOffice Calc.

• Apple Numbers – Numbers is free and comes on every Mac. It handles basic budgets, tables, and charts well, and its templates look polished. But Numbers struggles with large datasets — workbooks with thousands of rows slow down noticeably. It also saves in its own .numbers format; exporting to .xlsx sometimes shifts formatting or loses advanced chart settings. If you exchange files with Windows colleagues regularly, Excel is the safer choice.
• LibreOffice Calc – Calc is free and open-source. It opens .xlsx files reliably and handles formulas, pivot tables, and macros reasonably well. The interface feels closer to older versions of Excel. Where Calc falls short is in polish: chart rendering is less sharp, and some complex Excel functions behave differently or are missing. For occasional spreadsheet work, Calc works fine. For daily use in an office that relies on Excel-specific features — Ideas, advanced chart types, or cloud co-authoring — Excel for Mac is the more predictable tool.
• Google Sheets – Sheets runs in a browser and is free with a Google account. It excels at real-time collaboration and handles most everyday formulas. But it depends on an internet connection for full performance, and its chart library is narrower than Excel's. For accounting and audit work, where you often need local files and offline access, Excel for Mac is a more dependable option.

Each of these alternatives has its place. But if your workflow involves complex workbooks, shared .xlsx files, or the newer chart and analysis tools, Excel for Mac 16.93 covers the ground without workarounds.

• New chart types are included for better data visualization.
• Ideas is now available to help visualize data and trends.

• macOS 13 or later
• Supports Apple Silicon (ARM) and Intel (x86) Macs