Microsoft excel node with small sheet works fine, but when i connect large ones it keeps failing and never executes - how can i fix this or handle large files

Questions
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1

I’m using the n8n Excel node. When I connect a small Excel file, it runs normally and I can see rows and data. However, when I connect a very large Excel file, the node fails every time and doesn’t execute successfully. It doesn’t load the rows and just stops running. What is the recommended way to process large Excel files in n8n?

2

how are you running n8n? Cloud service or local deployment / community edition?
And how large is ‘very’ large excel files?
Perhaps related; when I was processing audio files I ran into a memory problem when running n8n installed with npm. I think by default nodejs runs with limited RAM. There is a variable you can set when running n8n, instructing it to use more RAM of your provided system.
export NODE_OPTIONS=“–max-old-space-size=4096”
this fixed my problem.

here is a summerization of my chat with claude:

n8n Memory Limit Issue

When processing large files in n8n (self-hosted, community edition), workflows fail due to memory limitations. The default Node.js heap memory (~1.4-2GB) is insufficient.

Solution: Set the NODE_OPTIONS environment variable to increase the heap size:

export NODE_OPTIONS="--max-old-space-size=4096"

Adjust the value (in MB) based on available server RAM. The method to persist this setting depends on how n8n is run (systemd, Docker, PM2, etc.).