Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated December 20, 2025)
This tip applies to Excel 2019, 2021, 2024, and Excel in Microsoft 365
Normally, if you have linked information in your workbook, the information is updated whenever you open the workbook. There may be times when you need to update the links manually, however. You do this by following these steps:
Figure 1. The Workbook Links task pane.
If the Workbook Links tool (step 2) is grayed out, it is because you have no links in your workbook. Note that the links listed in the Workbook Links task pane are to other workbooks. If you have multiple links to the same workbook, then the workbook is listed only once in the task pane. When you choose to refresh the links to that workbook (steps 3 and 4), then all the links to that workbook are refreshed.
If you want to update all of the links instead of doing them individually, you can click the Refresh All option at the top of the Workbook Links task pane. When you are done updating links, you can close the task pane.
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2025-12-21 12:09:45
J. Woolley
The legacy Edit Links dialog (see Figure 1 below) can be opened by adding the Edit Links command to your QAT or to your Custom group in the ribbon; otherwise, use this VBA statement:
Application.Dialogs(xlDialogOpenLinks).Show
My Excel Toolbox includes the following dynamic array function:
=ListExLinks([SkipReference], [SkipHeader])
The result of ListExLinks is similar to the Edit Links dialog minus the Update column, but ListExLinks adds an optional Reference column to identify cells that contain a formula referencing the link.
ListExLinks is concerned with external links referenced by the active workbook, but the LinksToMe macro identifies all workbooks having an external link that references the active workbook.
See https://sites.google.com/view/MyExcelToolbox/
Figure 1.
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