How to Open Certain Workbooks Automatically When You Start Excel

In the situation where you make use of a few Excel spreadsheets everyday, you will agree that it could be helpful if it is possible to open those spreadsheets automatically when you start Excel every time. Thus it is very relieving when Excel has this feature built-in–if you know where to look.

An instance of this here is, you could open a time sheet file on a daily basis to maintain watch on the count of hours you work on projects. Excel crafted a folder with the name of XLSTART when you have proceeded with the installation of the program. There is no exception, every single file you put in this folder will automagically open the moment you start Excel. Here in this guide, JustNaira will show you the means to locating the destination of this folder.

Using Excel’s Built-In XLSTART Folder

To start, simply open Excel and click the File tab.

Click “Options” on the backstage screen, in the list of items on the left.

There comes on the display of the “Excel Options” dialog box. Click “Trust Center” in the list of items on the left.

Click “Trust Center Settings” in the “Microsoft Excel Trust Center section.

Click “Trusted Locations” on the “Trust Center” dialog box, in the list of items on the left.

There comes on the display of a list of default locations in Excel under “Trusted Locations”. Click on the “User StartUp” location which could be seen under “User Locations”.

This is followed with the display of the full path to the selected location below the list of locations. This happens to be the folder which Excel will search or scan for files at every interval it starts. There is the option of either making it a note of the path yourself as well as the other option of copying the path, by clicking “Modify”.

Should you have clicked on “Modify” to copy the full path, the “Microsoft Office Trusted Location” dialog box shows up. Take the path in the “Path” edit box on the “Microsoft Office Trusted Location” dialog box pressing Ctrl+C to copy it. Click “OK” or “Cancel” on the current dialog box, and on the “Trust Center” and “Excel Options” dialog boxes so as to close all the dialog boxes and return to the main Excel window, .

After this, open File Explorer (or Windows Explorer in the case of older versions of Windows), place the cursor in the address bar, proceeding to paste the path you have copied. To go to the folder press “Enter”

At this junction, we are struck with the strict need to copy the file which we intend adding to this folder. Open another File Explorer window, move to the folder which contains the file you use daily, choose the file, after making your selection, drag it to the XLSTART folder.

After all this the file now automatically opens every time you start Excel!