Excel Macro: Open All Workbooks in a Folder

Sometimes you may need to go into your folder, open each workbook, edit, save it, close the workbook, and then open the next one. Opening each workbook in a folder or directory is typically a time consuming manual process. This little macro takes care of that annoyance.

Open All Workbooks in a Folder

'---------------- Modules ----------------
Sub OpenAllWorkbooks()
    'Step 1:Declare your variables
    Dim MyFiles As String
    'Step 2: Specify a target folder/directory, you may change it.
    MyFiles = Dir("D:\Temp\*.xlsx")
    Do While MyFiles <> ""
        'Step 3: Open Workbooks one by one
        Workbooks.Open "D:\Temp\" & MyFiles

        'run some code here
    
        MsgBox ActiveWorkbook.Name
        ActiveWorkbook.Close SaveChanges:=True

        'Step 4: Next File in the folder/Directory
        MyFiles = Dir
    Loop
End Sub

How This Macro Works

In this Macro, we use the Dir function to enumerate through all the .xlsx files in a given directory, capturing each file’s name. Then we open each file, run some code, and finally save and close the file.

1. Step 1 declares the MyFiles string variable that will capture each file name that is in the enumeration.
2. In Step 2, the macro uses the Dir function to specify the directory and file type we are looking for. Note that the code here is looking for *.xlsx. This means that only .xlsx files will be looped through. If you are looking for .xls files, you need to change that (along with the directory you need to search). This macro passes any file name it finds to the MyFiles string variable.
3. Step 3 opens the file, does some stuff (this is where you would put in any macro code to perform the desired actions), and then we save and close the file. In this simple example, we are calling a message box to show each file name as it opens.
4. The last step of the macro loops back to find more files. If there are no more files, the MyFiles variable will be blank. If that is the case, the loop and macro end.

How to Use This Macro