Favourite Free Excel Add-ins

Excel has some powerful features, but it's not perfect. To add to its capabilities, I use a few free add-ins that make Excel even better, and asked other people what free add-ins they use, and would recommend.

NOTE: After a recent Microsoft update, some Excel add-ins (mine and others) are not loading correctly. To show the add-ins, follow the instructions here.

More Free Excel Add-ins

Other Excel Add-ins

Thanks to Contributors

My Favourite Free Excel Add-ins

Here's the list, starting with my favourites. Maybe you'll see a few that you can download and install, and make working in Excel a bit easier.

Excel Utilities

This add-in, developed by Rob Bovey of AppsPro, has handy tools for working with named ranges, worksheets and selections.

With the Excel Utilities commands, you can quickly protect and unprotect all the sheets in a workbook, remove unused styles, or centre across a selection, without merging cells.

There are too many features to list here. Read the full description on Rob's page for Excel Utilities.

Name Manager

The Name Manager, by Jan Karel Pieterse of JKP Application Development Services, is much better than the Name features that come with Excel.

If you use names in Excel, you'll appreciate the Name Manager. Find names with errors and delete them, or track names that link to another workbook.

Take a couple of minutes to download Name Manager, and you'll be amazed by how much time and frustration it can save you.

More Free Add-ins for Excel

Here are some of the other recommended free Excel add-ins.

NOTE: Please read the terms of use for these utilities, before you install them. Some are free for personal use, but might require a licence for commercial use. Also, some free add-ins might be discontinued, or change to paid versions only. If any of these are no longer free, please let me know and I will remove them from the list.

Add-In	Developer	Note
AET VBE Tools	Andrew Engwirda	Tools for working with code in the VBE Andrew has other free tools, including Custom Lists and XL Help Files Maker
ASAP Utilities		Large collection of utilities
AutoSafe	Jan Karel Pieterse	Copies open workbooks at regular intervals
Button Editor	Andy Pope	Edit button images
Chart Labeler	Rob Bovey	Add labels to any chart type
Code Cleaner	Rob Bovey	Cleans VBA code to prevent problems
FindLink	Bill Manville	Look for hidden links in a workbook
FlexFind	Jan Karel Pieterse	Search entire workbook, including buttons, etc.
FormulaDesk add-in		Formula tools, for Excel 2010 and later
MZ Tools		Tools for working with VBA
Navigator Utilities		Navigate and audit workbooks
Pivot Power Free	Contextures	Tools for working with Pivot Tables
Thesaurus for Excel		Find words with similar meaning
XLG Favourites	Ken Puls	Manage list of favourite files