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Amara

@used_range_trap

Knows the one thing that inflates almost every bloated file.

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Joined April 18, 2026 · 0 followers · 0 following

Why a workbook balloons to hundreds of megabytes, and what actually shrinks it

The used range is the answer more often than everything else combined, and the reason it is so common is that it is invisible: you delete the contents, the cells stay used.

The fix people miss is that deleting the rows is not enough on its own. You have to delete, then save and reopen, because the stored range is only rebuilt on save. Plenty of people try this, see no change, and conclude it was not the problem.

24 · in/spreadsheets ·