The Error: The Disk is Full Error in Excel

Excel is one of the most popular Microsoft Office applications used worldwide by businesses and individuals. It can help users maintain, calculate and analyze all kinds of data in an easy way. However, it can also throw errors at you at the most unexpected times, for example, the disk is full error.

When you are trying to save a document, you receive the “Disk is Full.” message followed by “Document not saved.”. It’s really a painful situation especially if you have worked heavily on that document. But don’t be too panic, in the following part, you will know why the disk is full error happens to Excel 2010/2013/2016 and also the solutions to fix the problem. Here we go.

Causes to Excel the Disk is Full Document Not Saved

Generally, the disk is full error in Excel will occur under two situations:

  • There is no enough space on the disk to save the document.
  • The process that Excel uses to save a file is interrupted.

When you are working in a workbook, Microsoft Excel saves the file with a temporary file name and places this file in the same folder as the original file. When you click the save option, your original file is removed and the temporary file is renamed with the original file name.

Therefore, the free disk space must be greater than twice the file size being saved. If not, the disk is full error can occur.

On the other hand, if any obstruction occurs in this process, it will also lead to Excel the disk is full document not saved issue. For example, you may try to save the file to external hard drive or a network drive but the connection has been dropped. Then your file may not be saved properly or you can find one or more temporary files in the folder.

How to Fix Excel 2010/2013/2016 the Diks is Full Error?

From the above part, you know what will cause Microsoft Excel the disk is full error. Now let’s start to see the solutions to fix the problem.

Solution 1. Check the free space

Go to have a check and make sure your disk isn’t actually full. Open This PC/My Computer to check the bar of the disk. If the bar is red, then the disk is too full to save any file. You can move some files to another hard drive or just delete some old files.

Solution 2. Copy files to another hard drive

Since Excel the disk is full document not saved error can happen due to the low disk space, you can simply save the files to another disk. If want to save the file on a floppy disk, you can first save the file to the hard disk and then copy it onto the floppy disk.

Solution 3. Save the file with a different name

You can go to File option > choose Save As and rename the workbook.

Solution 4. Check the connection

As mentioned above, the Excel the disk is full error will appear when disk accidentally get detached from the system. You need to restore the connection or correct the problem.

Solution 5. Monitor your saves

The disk is full error may also occur when you have saved a document an extreme amount of times. If file sharing is enabled, the limit to save a file each time you open a workbook is 60 times. You can close and reopen the workbook every 20 saves to avoid the issue.

Solution 6. Turn off File Sharing

If you don’t need file sharing, you can simply turn it off. It will remove the limit of saves you can make.

Bonus Tip: Easy Way to Backup Computer

You will never know what kind of problem will happen to your computer. It’s lucky if there are solutions to fix the issue like the disk is full error we are talking above. However, sometimes the problem just can’t be fixed and need to perform a system restore or even a clean restore, which will cause data loss.

Therefore, to ensure data safety, regularly backing up the computer is a good habit. To help you make it easier, AOMEI Backupper Standard is here to help. It can help backup your system, the whole hard drive, individual partition or selected files. Also lets you set scheduled backup task to help you perform a backup daily/weekly/daily.

Example: backup selected files with AOMEI Backupper

Step 1. Download, install and launch AOMEI Backupper Standard. Click Backup and then choose File Backup.

Step 2. Click Add File or Add Folder according to your needs. Choose the files or folders you want to backup.

Step 3. Select the backup destination path. It supports backup to local disk, external hard drive, NAS network location, etc.

Step 4. Click Start Backup to execute the task.

Notes:

1. You can click Schedule to set custom scheduled backup task.

2. When you want to perform a restore: go to Home > find the backup task > click more option and click Restore to make it.

Conclusion

That’s all for how to fix the disk is full error in Excel 2010/2013/2016. Hope one of these solutions can help you get out of the trouble. By the way, to ensure the data safety, please remember to make a backup for your computer with AOMEI Backupper Standard. Thus, you can always find a way to find the lost files.