Break links in Excel

What Excel does when it breaks a link

Every formula that read from the other workbook is replaced by the value it held at that moment. The workbook stops depending on the other file, and the formula behind each number is gone.

That is the opposite of repairing a link, where the formula is kept and only the path it points at changes. Breaking is the right choice when the workbook has to stand on its own, for example before sending it to someone who will never have access to the source files.

It cannot be undone by relinking afterwards. Pointing at the source again gives you a working link, but the formulas that were replaced are still gone and anything built on them has to be rewritten. Save a copy of the workbook before you start and keep it until you are sure the result is what you wanted.

Break a link in Excel

Where the command lives depends on your version. In current Microsoft 365 builds, open the Data tab and choose Workbook Links in the Queries and Connections group, which opens a pane listing each linked workbook. In older versions the same list appears in the Edit Links dialog on the same tab.

1. Save a copy of the workbook first.
2. Open the workbook links pane, or the Edit Links dialog in older versions.
3. Select the source workbook you want to disconnect.
4. Choose Break Link.
5. Confirm, then save.

Excel works on one source at a time. A workbook that reads from four different files needs the action four times, and each one applies immediately to the open workbook.

Before you break a link

The links pane tells you which files are involved. It does not tell you where inside your workbook each one is used, and that is the part worth knowing first.

A source feeding two summary cells is a different decision from one feeding a defined name, a chart and forty formulas across three sheets. Break the link and all of them become static values at once. A chart that was reading live figures simply stops changing, with nothing on screen to say why.

It is also worth checking whether the source is missing rather than unwanted. If the file only moved, repointing it keeps the model working, which is usually what people actually want when they open the links pane. That is covered in fixing broken links.

Break Link, Change Source and repair are three different things

They are easy to confuse because they all start from the same pane.

• Break Link removes the dependency and keeps the values. The formulas are replaced.
• Change Source keeps the formulas and points them at a different workbook. Covered in changing the source of a link.
• Repair is Change Source used to reconnect a reference that should still be working, usually because the source file moved or was renamed.

Excel Link Rescue does the second and third of those. It repoints supported workbook references and leaves the formulas intact. It does not break or remove links, and it does not convert formulas to values. If breaking a link is what you want, Excel's own command is the tool for it.

If Excel will not break the link

Sometimes you break every link Excel lists, save, reopen, and the workbook still reports an external reference. That usually means something is left in a place the Break Link command does not reach, rather than anything being wrong with Excel.

Working out what remains is its own job, and it is covered in Excel Break Links not working.

Seeing what a source is connected to first

If you are not sure which external workbooks a file still depends on, Excel Link Rescue reads a closed .xlsx or .xlsm file and lists the external workbook references it can detect, grouped by the source they point at, with the sheet and cell for formulas and the name for a defined name.

That is a way to see what you would be removing before you decide how to handle it. The decision itself stays yours: break the link in Excel, repoint it, or leave it alone. Scanning does not modify the workbook.