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Very Slow Read from Excel speeds - Filter?

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Posted on by ncd

Hi there, I have a Power Automate Desktop flow which reads data from an Excel worksheet, but having reached about 800 rows PAD is taking minutes to read the file and get the flow started.

Is there any way to speed this up? Would any sort of filter work? Is it possible to read a single row based on an unique ID without having to load the entire sheet?

Cheers.

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Power Automate Desktop

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Deenuji_Loganathan_ 6,250 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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@ncd

The overall speed is completely dependent on our machine configuration, the storage location of your Excel file, and the version of Power Automate Desktop (PAD) you are using.

I concur with your observation that the recent versions of Power Automate Desktop take additional time compared to previous ones. I am unsure if there is any workaround for this issue.

Regarding the filter option, I don't believe it will be effective in your row filter scenario. You can apply filters to retrieve only a single column or multiple columns with certain rows, among other things. You may want to explore these options to see if they result in any improvement in overall performance.

In case if you are opening excel file from OneDrive location then move into actual c drive some root folder and
see if they result in any improvement in overall performance.

Thanks,
Deenuji Loganathan 👩‍💻
Automation Evangelist 🤖
Follow me on LinkedIn 👥

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Deenuji Loganathan 👩‍💻
Automation Evangelist 🤖
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VishnuReddy1997 2,656 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Hi @ncd ,

As mentioned by @Deenuji it depends upon various factor. But by using excel as DB and filter those will increase the speed.
Please try the below approach so it may increase the speed.

(Note:- if you got your solution you can mark as solution and gives kudos)

Thanks & Regards
Vishnu Reddy

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ncd 10 on at

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Thank you for the replies. That looks like it would indeed improve things, but unfortunately I cannot test the solution, as it seems that my company does not have the Microsoft Access Database Engine installed (would need administration rights to do so) and I get an error when trying to create the SQL connection (our Excel install is 32 bits).

The 'Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0' provider is not registered on the local machine.

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VishnuReddy1997 2,656 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Hi @ncd ,

You need to install Microsoft Access Database Engine to do that scenario.
You can also try using VBscript option as shown in below .

Scripting.RunVBScript.RunVBScript VBScriptCode: $'''\' This code has been generated by AI. Original prompt: \' Vbscript to Read all theavailable data from Excel Set objExcel = CreateObject(\"Excel.Application\") Set objWorkbook = objExcel.Workbooks.Open(\"C:\\path\\to\\your\\excel\\file.xlsx\") \' Loop through each sheet in the workbook For Each objWorksheet In objWorkbook.Sheets WScript.Echo \"Sheet Name: \" & objWorksheet.Name WScript.Echo \"===============================\" \' Loop through each row in the sheet For i = 1 To objWorksheet.UsedRange.Rows.Count strRowValue = \"\" \' Loop through each column in the row For j = 1 To objWorksheet.UsedRange.Columns.Count strRowValue = strRowValue & objWorksheet.Cells(i, j).Value & \" \" Next \' Output the row value WScript.Echo strRowValue Next WScript.Echo \"\" Next objExcel.Quit''' ScriptOutput=> VBScriptOutput12 ScriptError=> ScriptError

(Note:- if you got your solution you can mark as solution and gives kudos)

Thanks & Regards
Vishnu Reddy

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AK88 453 on at

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Hi @ncd ,

As mentioned by @Deenuji and @VishnuReddy1997 , kindly try to use excel as a DB , sharing the below link for to install Microsoft Access Database Engine.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=54920

Hope this would make your solution much more faster, as mentioned the performance is completely based on the system configuration, but try to run the flows from console window which would make your solution much more faster rather than debugging mode.

If this resolves your query kindly mark it as solution and give kudos.

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Riyaz_riz11 3,856 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Hi @ncd ,

Best approach will be excel as a database action.

Here in this you can filter data based on required columns.

Connection String:Provider=Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0;Data Source=C:\Users\Riyaz\Downloads\MayFullFile.xlsx;Extended Properties="Excel 12.0 Xml;HDR=YES";

If I have answered your question, please mark it as the preferred solution. If you like my response, please give it a Thumbs Up.

Regards,
Riyaz

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