Instead of importing data, you can convert an Excel file to Sheets and keep working on it in Sheets. Your Excel file won’t be changed.

  1. Open Driveand double-click an Excel file.

A preview of your file opens.

  1. At the top, click Open with Google Sheets.
  2. Click File Save as Google Sheets.

To automatically convert all future uploads of Office files to Google Sheets: 

  1. In Drive, at the top, click Settings Settings.
  2. Next to Convert uploads, turn on Convert uploaded files to Google Docs editor format.

Note: Previously uploaded files will not be converted.

In Drive, you’ll see the Excel file and the new Sheets file. You can keep the Excel file or delete it. If you keep the Excel file, to avoid confusion, you can rename it to something like [Archived] My doc.xls.

Tip: Use these icons to quickly differentiate Sheets and Excel files in Drive: 

SheetsSheets  ExcelExcel