How to open Excel Files downloaded from the Internet

You may have reached here because you purchased and Excel template from one of our Online Stores on Etsy, TeachersPayTeachers or Gumroad. Or maybe you downloaded a file from somewhere else and you want to open it.

First of all, make sure you trust the source. We scan all our files with the latest anti-virus programs. It is also good, as an additional precaution to have your own antivirus and to scan any file that you may have received.

The warnings below are usually showing when opening Excel files with macros.

Here are some of the warnings you may see.

Windows Computers

Be careful – files from the Internet can contain viruses. Unless you need to edit, it’s safer to stay in Protected View

This is a general warning that Excel has on all files downloaded from the internet. Make sure you trust the source of the file and also, just to be safe, install an antivirus that scans the files during download. Windows 11 may have it’s own built in Windows Defender Antivirus.

Click on Enable Editing to continue using the file.

External Data Connections have been disabled.

This should not show all the time.

Excel is very cautious with files that connect to external sites. The first warning you’ll see will be related to external links. The external links could be links to other files or links to websites. For example, one of our files contains links to a data API to provide some Etsy data analytics.

Click Enable Content to continue using the file

Security Risk: Microsoft has blocked macros from running because the source of this file is untrusted

This is a warning that you’ll get for files containing Macros. Macros are small programs running in the background on Excel. Many times macros are needed to automate tasks that would otherwise take a long time to complete.

This is a little more tricky to solve.

To solve this problem, Excel blocked the file form running macros. You have to make the decision to unblock it and that can’t be done in Excel.

First, close the file. Then go to the file explorer, right click on the file and click on properties. This will open the Property menu. On this page, notice the “Unblock” checkmark at the bottom. Uncheck that and click ok. Reopen the file and this warning will go away.

Privacy Levels (for files with external links and API’s)

The next warning you might get is related to Privacy. The error might sound like “Query is accessing Data Sources that have privacy levels which cannot be used together”. When you use API’s you could potentially also post data to the internet so Excel is making sure you know what you are doing. Here’s an example of this error message.

To get rid of this, you’d have to check off the Ignore Privacy Warning setting.

Go to the Data Tab – go to Get Data – Query Options

Next, click on Privacy in the Current Workbook section. Select Ignore Privacy Levels and potentially improve performance.

MacBook Computers

If you are using a Mac, go to Data tab – Get Data – Launch Power Query Editor.

Click on Options – Project – Privacy – and check on that box as in the image below.

That’s it. Now you are all set.