•2 min read•from Microsoft Excel | Help & Support with your Formula, Macro, and VBA problems | A Reddit Community
Anyone using Excel professionally on Mac via Parallels? (VBA, Power BI, large financial models)
Our take
Hello everyone, I’m a financial controller navigating complex Excel models and large datasets on a MacBook Air M4 with 24GB RAM. However, I’ve encountered significant limitations with Excel for Mac, particularly with features like VBA, pivot tables, and Power BI. To enhance my workflow, I’m considering running Windows through Parallels. Before making this investment, I’d love to hear from others who use Mac and Parallels for professional Excel work. How does Excel perform with large financial models?
Hi everyone,
I’m a financial controller working with heavy Excel models (FP&A, financial infrastructure, large datasets, pivot tables, VBA, etc.).
Right now I’m using a MacBook Air M4 with 24GB RAM, but Excel for Mac has some serious limitations for my workflow. I often deal with:
- Large spreadsheets
- Complex formulas
- Pivot tables
- VBA/macros
- Power BI
- SQL integrations
Because of that, I’m considering running Windows through Parallels so I can use the full Windows version of Excel and Power BI.
However, before investing in a new machine (possibly a MacBook Pro with more RAM), I wanted to hear from people who actually work like this.
For those using Mac + Parallels for professional Excel work:
- Does Excel run smoothly?
- Any performance issues with large financial models?
- How much RAM do you allocate to the VM?
- Does VBA run without issues?
- Can you comfortably run Power BI in the Windows VM?
- Any noticeable slowdown compared to a native Windows machine?
My workload is pretty Excel-heavy (financial modeling, dashboards, large datasets), so stability and performance are critical.
Would really appreciate hearing about real-world setups and experiences.
Thanks!
[link] [comments]
Read on the original site
Open the publisher's page for the full experience
Related Articles
- Macbook for finance degreeGonna start my finance degree soon, i know nothing about excel and etc but I've heard that using macos for excel is bad , if i use parallels will this problem be solved cause i don't think i can switch to windows submitted by /u/Awkward_Beach4021 [link] [comments]
- I choose a MAC over a Windows for excel heavy jobI am intern at a big multinational corporation and I received an email saying that I can choose between a thinkpad or a new macbook m4. Long story short I choose the Mac but now I read excel is really bad on it. I mostly have to upload information to a data base manually or V-LOOKUP things. Handle invoices, create new data bases based on sales and update already existing excel tables tracking sales. This is 50% of my job. Am I screwed? submitted by /u/Glittering-Back-5850 [link] [comments]
- how did you improve your workplace's legacy vba macros?I recently transitioned to a non-clinical role in a public health care system. part of the on-boarding was a 12 page, 20 step tutorial on how to 'do the macros'. The workflow simplified is: - Get source data from EHR/BI - Open the excel online (microsoft 365) "Daily Review" workbook in the desktop ms excel. (hopes and prayers it doesn't crash) - copy data (columns of patient ID, demographics, medications... you get the idea) from EHR, paste into this Daily Review - run macro (click a button) which cleans, filters, applies conditional formatting i think - save - go back to excel online and resume editing there. The VBA code was created (not sure if it was written coz it has no documentation) by a colleague who is on extended mat leave. I can see a lot of 'modules'. Can't tell which is active. There are probably lots of historical decisions. The daily review file with its many many sheets is saved in multiple locations in case newcomers like me or others break it by accident. I am told we can't change anything like move a column closer to the beginning coz well we can't. I don't know VBA but could probably figure it out if I watch a tutorial on it. I am linux user and know basics of C, python and make good use of my claude code with the pro subscription but never really worked with spreadsheets. I am wondering if anyone was in a similar situation and how you managed it. Is moving to office scripts (typescript) a viable alternative? Any other life improving tips would be appreciate it. Or maybe I should just give up and focus the energy elsewhere? submitted by /u/Neat-Badger-5939 [link] [comments]
- Do you use VBA regularly or have you moved entirely to Power Query and formulas?I have been using Excel for years and VBA was always my go to for automation. Lately I have been seeing more people say they barely touch VBA anymore because Power Query and dynamic arrays cover most of what they need. I still use VBA for things like automating reports across multiple files or generating custom email bodies from data. But I am wondering if I am behind the curve. For those of you who work in data heavy roles, what is your current workflow? Do you still use VBA regularly or have you replaced it with other tools? Curious if I should be spending more time learning Power Query and the newer formula features instead of maintaining my VBA skills. submitted by /u/ProfessionalOk4935 [link] [comments]
Tagged with
#Excel alternatives for data analysis#financial modeling with spreadsheets#Excel compatibility#Excel alternatives#financial modeling#natural language processing for spreadsheets#large dataset processing#generative AI for data analysis#machine learning in spreadsheet applications#AI-native spreadsheets#cloud-native spreadsheets#big data performance#rows.com#big data management in spreadsheets#real-time data collaboration#predictive analytics in spreadsheets#real-time collaboration#workflow automation#Excel#Mac