# Off Topic > Tips and Tutorials >  >  Error Message - Large Operation - available resources?

## MarvinP

I get an error message when I try to delete a row in a table.

The error message first is in a dialog box called "Large Operation ?" and reads:
"The operation you are about to perform affects a large number of cells and may take a significant amount of time to complete.  Are you sure you want to continue?

Note: This operation will be performed automatically in 60 seconds if no response is received"

"Excel cannot complete this task with available resources.  Choose less data or close other applications."

I'm working with a table of 84,000 rows and figured it was a memory problem so I took the Excel file to my 16Mb memory machine and got the same message.  

I believe this message is coming from my large table that is a Dynamic Named Range of data.  I use this Name in a Pivot Table and sometimes get an error message that the Pivot Table is only using the first 10,000 rows.  

I'm simply trying to reduce the table of 84,000 rows to about 20,000 and only include the most recent data set (last 6 months of data).

To accomplish my task, here is what works....

1. Sort the data by date so the most recent data is together.
2. Copy the rows you want to keep and paste them to a new and blank worksheet.
3. Select all cells on the large sheet and clear contents so it is now blank
4. Copy and paste the rows from the temporary sheet back to the old sheet.

The above operations of don't require any recalculations or Dynamic Named Range or Pivot Tables and work fine.  It took me a few tries to discover how to reduce my dataset when it was a DNR and had a Pivot Table included which was over 10,000 rows.

I hope this tip can help others who run into this error message.

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## ImStevenB

Thanks for the tip on working with large spreadsheets.

Out of curiosity .. did you try turning off the Autocalculate?  Did it give the same messages?

I know when you add or remove rows Excel like to recalculate everything.

Thanks

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## MarvinP

Hi,

I did turn the Auto Calculate to manual and tried to delete a row and got the same error message.  It wasn't a problem with auto calculate as far as I could tell.

The message about Pivot Tables and 10,000 rows was one I'd never seen before.  All suggestions on the net didn't help.  

This tip is to use copy and paste which has been around a lot longer than pivots and should work with most every version.  It worked with this problem...

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