[Excel VBA] How to Close a Workbook Without “Save Changes?” Confirmation

2025年12月29日

When you close a workbook in VBA using .Close, if there are unsaved changes, Excel displays a confirmation message: “Do you want to save your changes?” This causes the macro to pause and wait for a user response, which prevents full automation.

In this article, I will explain how to use the SaveChanges argument of the .Close method to completely suppress this message and automatically save or discard changes.

The SaveChanges Argument of Workbook.Close

The Close method has a very important argument called SaveChanges. By setting this to True or False, you can control the saving behavior.

Value of SaveChanges	Behavior
True	Automatically overwrites and saves changes, then closes without a message.
False	Automatically discards changes, then closes without a message.
Omitted	Displays the “Do you want to save changes?” confirmation (The macro pauses).

Completed VBA Code

1. Save Changes and Close Without Message

This code automatically saves changes made to the workbook and closes it without any confirmation message.

Sub SaveAndCloseBook()
    Dim targetBook As Workbook
    Set targetBook = ActiveWorkbook
    
    ' Save changes and close
    ' Note: If this is a new workbook that has never been saved, 
    ' the "Save As" dialog will appear.
    targetBook.Close SaveChanges:=True
End Sub

2. Discard Changes and Close Without Message

This code discards all changes made to the workbook and closes it without any confirmation message.

Sub DiscardAndCloseBook()
    Dim targetBook As Workbook
    Set targetBook = ActiveWorkbook
    
    ' Discard changes and close
    targetBook.Close SaveChanges:=False
End Sub

[Advanced] Robust Code Considering Unsaved Workbooks

While SaveChanges:=True is convenient, if you use it on a new workbook that has never been saved (e.g., “Book1”), the “Save As” dialog will appear, stopping the macro.

To avoid this, checking “if the workbook has ever been saved” before deciding the action is a safer and more reliable method.

Code and Explanation

VBA

Sub SmartCloseBook()
    Dim bookToClose As Workbook
    Set bookToClose = ActiveWorkbook

    ' Check the save history using the .Path property
    If bookToClose.Path <> "" Then
        ' Workbook with a save history -> Save changes and close
        bookToClose.Close SaveChanges:=True
        MsgBox "Saved changes and closed the workbook."
    Else
        ' New workbook (e.g., "Book1") -> Discard changes and close
        bookToClose.Close SaveChanges:=False
        MsgBox "Discarded changes to the new workbook and closed it."
    End If
End Sub

If bookToClose.Path <> "" Then: The .Path property returns the folder path where the workbook is saved. For a workbook that has never been saved, this property is an empty string (""). We use this to determine if the workbook is new or existing.