Excel spreadsheet update not updating in PRO

[JeanetteHarlow1]

When I update and save an xlsx sheet, the changes are not reflected in Arc GIS PRO.  Does anyone else have this problem?  Has anyone  found a specific method to making the changes reflect?

I usually have to turn off PRO and then restart the program for the changes to be reflected.  That said, recently I noticed that even turning off the software and restarting that the changes don't reflect in PRO.

Please note, I make the change in excel.  I save the file.  I close Excel.  

In PRO I remove the old sheet from the Contents pane and refresh the homefile the spreadsheet is in.  I also refresh the folder the spreadsheet is in.  And I do this in a variety of order.  

It also seems that just being patient does not work.

I have had this problem for many PRO versions and currently am running 2.5.0

[LisaSenn]

Simply version up your filename, so it cannot figure out it's the old one with minor changes!!! 😄 

[ValerieZimmer]

Still no solution for this?  Really?

[EmilyGriswold]

Agreed, this is mind boggling. There are very valid reasons for working from Excel, and Refresh should do just that. 

[Bud]

I've seen the same issue in Pro 3.2.1 very recently. I refreshed the Excel file in Catalog, but it had no effect. The edits I made to Excel did not appear in the attribute table in Pro.

However, I tried testing it again just now (3.2.1), and couldn't reproduce the issue. Refreshing in Catalog worked. So that's interesting.

Video:

By the way, if you want Esri to change functionality like this, I think you'd have better success posting an idea instead of commenting on it in a question. Or submit a case to Esri Support and ask them to report the issue as a bug.

[Wayne_Rennick]

I'm super confused by what's going on here. So, does ArcGIS Pro make a copy of the excel sheets when they are added to the project? What other file types also have this behavior?  This is not how it worked in ArcMap. (this is not better)

We all know that Excel isn't the best place to store data, BUT it's used all the time in organizations when collaborating between different people. So, it's crazy to make us remove the tables (and any joins that have been created) to have ArcGIS Pro see the data.

[VilleJärvinen]

With ArcGIS Pro 3.2.1 (21-03-2025) the bug is still there. Adding data from an edited Excel file does not read the data from the Excel file, rather ArcGIS Pro adds outdated data from some unknown cache. The Excel file needs to be renamed for ArcGIS Pro to actually update the data.

[Wayne_Rennick]

Look for a geoprocessing tool to refresh Excel. I don't know when it was implemented but it solves a lot of the issues.

https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/latest/tool-reference/data-management/refresh-excel.htm