Apple Silicon processors now support Power Query Excel for Mac

For a long time, Excel has been an Apple Silicon native (along with the rest of Office, except OneDrive). However, Power Query was the only tool that required Rosetta to run on Apple Silicon Macs. But now with the latest update, it has been enhanced to be Apple Silicon (M1, M1 Pro, M1 Max) native, Excel Power Query no longer requiresRosetta.

As per the latest update on Microsoft release notes, Version 16.57 (Build 22011101) Excel can now run queries natively on Macs with Apple Silicon Processors without the need for Rosetta translation, which means you can experience better performance and energy efficiency while working with Power Query.

Excel is fully supported on devices with Apple Silicon CPUs: Power Query in Excel for Mac is now natively supported on Apple Silicon processors. If you previously used Rosetta emulator to run Excel, you may now disable it and run Excel natively on your devices.

This update is applicable to Micorosft Office 365 subscribers, a One-time purchase of Office 2019 & Office 2021 (for details check the release notes).

From Microsoft AutoUpdate (MAU) users can download the updated version.

Open any Office Application (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote)
Go to > Help > Check for Updates to use Microsoft AutoUpdate.

Note that if you don’t find MAU then you might have to download Microsoft Office from Apple Store in that case you need an update from App Stores.

Check this video why I recommend downloading directly from Microsoft Office.

What is the use of Rosetta on Apple Silicon processors ?

Apple introduced the Rosetta translation program so that code developed for Intel x86-64 for Macs can run smoothly on Apple Silicon Macs without any issue.

However, Rosetta is a temporary solution to run the intel-based application and in the future, all the applications must support ARM-based Macs for Apple Silicon Processors. As said by Apple during the launch of the first M1 event this will be a three-year transition and we may see they might discontinue support for the original Rosetta in the future.