Slow copy and paste in Excel - due to KM, Alfred and Copied

So, I have a pleatora of tools these days thanks to MPU :stuck_out_tongue: and it includes Keyboard Maestro, Alfred, Copied app and god-knows what else and each of these have their own Clipboard management. I notice that when I tried to copy and paste from one Excel to another, and I am talking about just maybe a 5x5 cells, there is a slight lag. In fact, Alfred will give a chime when it copied to the clipboard and I always wait almost half a second before the chime sounds. That means, there is some lag before the data is copied to the clipboard. I wonder if having too many of these tools is the problem. Or do they NOT have their own clipboard but access the system clipboard? Any comments, observations on your end?

Could just be Excel. Sometimes I get a beach ball when doing the most mundane things, usually involving copy/paste. It’s a little ridiculous.

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Is this Excel 2016, by any chance?

It’s always possible that multiple apps looking at the clipboard could cause contention, but then you would be seeing lags in most if not all other apps in addition to Excel. FWIW, over here I have the same as you (Alfred, Copied, KM) plus several others that look at the clipboard in real time. I don’t see the lag in Excel or elsewhere.

Have you looked at some of your KM macros – maybe one or more of them are processing the clipboard data behind the scenes – perhaps running a script or something – and that is what causing the slowdown?

And of course you can turn all of these apps off, see what happens, then one on at a time to isolate the cause of the lags.

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I use Excel all the time and I have never experienced this, so it is not Excel. I copy and paste all the time and have zero lag. I do not use any of the programs mentioned above though, so it is likely one of them is causing this.

Excel from Office 365
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I do not use Clipboard Macro in KM, in fact, I am wondering how to turn it off. I have now quit Copied App. Let’s see if it gets better.

Are you on a MacBook Pro of iMac? I sometimes think that Desktop is more powerful than notebook (this is from the Windows days where my home PC is always much better than work notebook)

I use a 2017 Macbook Pro, with 8GB RAM. I use Excel with quite large datasets too because I teach data science, and I have no issues.

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My Excel always beachballs on the first copy/paste, then after that it’s generally okay. I’d never joined the dots with clipboard apps, I will have to experiment.

It seems Keyboard Maestro is the problem:

I turned it off and tried to copy in Excel. No lag. Instant!

I like KM! What can I do?

OK, so it is Excel 2016. @Drewster has already pointed out the issue with the beachball on the first copy/paste. I have that problem too, and I don’t have any of the apps you mentioned (Alfred, Copied, etc), so I think the behavior that Drewster and I are seeing is just Excel being Excel. I can’t say with certainty that your issue is the same as mine but it seems a likely possibility.

As @JohnAtl pointed out, “It’s a little ridiculous.”

Full disclosure: I do now have Keyboard Maestro but this issue was occurring before I installed KM

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I suggest bringing up your observations at the Keyboard Maestro forum. The developer, Peter Lewis, is very responsive and engaged with customers.

I googled around a bit, and this issue was discussed a least as far back as 2012. So it’s a Microsoft-ism.

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I have same isssue…using Office 365. will almost always get a beach ball on copy/paste…even one copying only a single cell.

I have the exact same issue. After the first beachball-on-copy it generally works fine. But it is sure frustrating. I do take some solace in knowing I am not alone-I had worried it was my MBP acting up!

Do you have Keyboard Maestro installed? If you quit it, does it help you? It does help me.

I do but I just tried stopping the KM engine and it made no difference. The first copy results in a temporary beachball…

Isn’t that strange. I can confirm, on my end, that quitting KM engine removes the lag. And if anyone is curious, here are my macro, which are low in number.

So the helpful dev of Keyboard Maestro, Peter, told me that by design, MS Office will copy something and covert the clipboard into multiple format including pictures and PDF. So, he taught me to exclude these apps from the Preference:

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I’ve done this, and I still get a beachball with Excel.

Sorry to hear that. I’m doing the same with Alfred too, asking it to ignore Excel. Do you have other Clipboard app?