Microsoft Excel is one of the oldest and most widely used applications available for the Mac. In fact, Mac is partly responsible for Excel’s popularity — it was widely used on Apple computers years before it became the standard spreadsheet tool on Windows. There are several ways to download Excel on your Mac, and we’ll show them all in this article.

What is Excel?

Excel is a spreadsheet application that has been part of Microsoft Office suite for decades. It’s hugely powerful and is the standard spreadsheet tool in most businesses and organizations. It’s not as elegant as Apple’s Numbers, but it is much more powerful. Excel is also available online in a web browser as part of Microsoft SharePoint suite, similar to Google Sheets.

How to free up space for Excel

Microsoft 365 download is over 2GB in size, but it requires around 10 GB of free space for the installation. If you’re concerned that you don’t have enough space or just want to free up as much space as possible, CleanMyMac can help. 

Its Smart Care feature will scan your Mac and look for junk files — cache, system, language, and temporary files you don’t need but that take gigabytes of space. It will then allow you to either delete everything it’s found or review the files the app has identified as junk and decide for yourself what to remove. 

Smart Care will also scan your Mac for malware and look for opportunities to optimize its performance. Here’s how to use it:

  1. Open CleanMyMac (get your free trial here).
  2. Click Scan.
  3. Click Run.
CleanMyMac's Smart Scan module


How to download Excel on Mac

There are four main ways to download Excel on your Mac. We’ll show you them all:

  • Downloading Excel as part of Office 2022 from Microsoft’s website 
  • Getting it from the Microsoft 365 app
  • Installing Excel from the App Store 
  • Using the free web version

If you use the first method, you can choose to buy it outright as part of Office 2024 (although you will need to pay for the whole Office suite) or sign up for a Microsoft 365 subscription. 

If you choose the second or third one, you’ll have to sign up for a Microsoft 365 subscription if you don’t already have one. You can choose to pay for the subscription monthly or annually.

Download Office 2024 from Microsoft

If you want to download Excel as a one-time purchase, you will need to buy the whole Office 2024 suite.

  1. Go to the Microsoft website here.
  2. Check the System Requirements.
  3. If your Mac meets the requirements and you want to go ahead, click Buy Now.
  4. Follow the instructions on the screen to pay for Office 2024.
  5. Once the purchase is complete, click on the link provided to download Office.
Download Office 2021 from Microsoft

Download Excel via Microsoft 365

Go to microsoft365.com and follow these steps:

  1. If you have an account, click Account at the top right of the page and sign in. If not, create a Microsoft 365 account.
  2. If you already have a subscription that includes Excel, click your initials bottom left and then choose View Account > Subscriptions.
  3. Click Install > Install.
  4. If you don’t already have a subscription, you can sign up for one after you have logged in, or you can choose the one-month free trial option. After you’ve done that, follow the steps on-screen to download Microsoft 365.
Download Excel via Microsoft 365

Once the installer has downloaded, double-click it to start the installation and follow the instructions on the screen to complete it.

Tip

Whenever you install any application on your Mac, it is likely to request access to some parts of your Mac, like camera, microphone, or Desktop and Documents folders. Once you have lots of applications installed, keeping track of those permissions can be difficult. One easy way to do it is to use the Protection feature in CleanMyMac.

Privacy module in CleanMyMac – Recent Items List

It allows you to easily see which apps have which permissions and to revoke them if necessary. It also makes it easy to do other things that improve your privacy, such as clearing your Recent Items List and getting rid of browser data like history, cache files, and cookies. And it scans your Mac for malware, too. 


Download Excel on your Mac from the App Store

Finally, you can download Excel from the App Store:

  1. Open the App Store app.
  2. Search for Excel.
  3. Click Get.
  4. Once it has finished installing, open Excel from your Applications folder.
  5. You will be able to sign up for a Microsoft 365 subscription as an in-app purchase and start using Excel.
Download Excel on Mac from the Mac App Store

Use Excel for free

If you need to work on just a few spreadsheets, you might not want to pay for Microsoft subscription. If that is the case, you can use Excel for free. Here's what to do: 

  1. In your web browser, go to excel.cloud.microsoft
  2. Click Sign in top right and either create an account or use your existing Microsoft account.
  3. You can now create spreadsheets or even upload existing ones.
Use Excel for web on Mac

Note, though, that this free method is great for basic work with spreadsheets, real-time collaboration, and reviewing what you have already done. However, it is significantly limited compared with the paid-for Excel because the web version lacks advanced tools like VBA macros, Power Query, Power Pivot, and complex data analysis features.

If you need the complete Excel suite for a limited time, do not forget about a 30-day free Microsoft 365 trial. 

There are several ways to download Excel on your Mac and a couple of different ways to pay for it. Follow the steps above to choose the method for you and start using Excel.