I think the size is limited by the operating system, not Excel itself.

Practically speaking, the maximum size is going to be whatever size works
acceptably on your oldest, slowest machine, or whatever file size doesn't
cause any of the users high on the corporate ladder to complain, whichever
is smaller. With straight data, for MY taste (YMMV), this is going to be in
the several-megabytes to low teens-MB range. With pictures and other
embedded items, this could be quite a lot larger, in the dozens of
megabytes, and work fine.

There are also issues about how complicated the workbook is; if there are
many linked formulas, and a change on one cell causes recalculations all
over the place, even a workbook thta isn't several megabytes may take longer
to recalculate than you find acceptable.

As for switching to a database, the easiest answer is: "if you have to ask,
it's time to switch to a database." ;-)

A slightly more serious answer is that it depends on your resources; if a
database expert is available to commit to the situation at hand, then you'll
do it earlier than if someone familiar with Excel (a good thing) has to
muddle through a database program they may NOT be familiar with (a bad
thing). I love Excel and all the great things it can do, but for databases
which have relations among fields in separate tables, it really is not the
most appropriate tool.
--
HTH -

-Frank
Microsoft Excel MVP
Dolphin Technology Corp.
http://vbapro.com



"John" wrote in message
...
Hi,

I was wondering, does anyone know the maximum size an XLS
file can be.

I am aware of the row, column and worksheet limitations,
however, I need to know how many megs is the max. an excel
file can be.

Also, any opinions on when you should move from excel to
Access.

Thanks.

John