You may have seen an error message like
To refresh a query, you must first install the appropriate ODBC driver for this version of Excel on your computer. For information about obtaining ODBC drivers, visit Microsoft website at http://microsoft.com/mac/.
Microsoft's knowledgebase suggests a need a for ODBC drivers to enable Web Query and other functionality in Excel on Mac, but this is not accurate.
Microsoft Excel (and more accurately Microsoft Query) do depend on iODBC library files.
iODBC is the free and open source ODBC driver manager on Mac OS X, which we (
Unfortunately, Apple has always lagged behind updates made to the iODBC project -- today, Apple is shipping iODBC 3.52.6 (October, 2007) in Big Sur, even though iODBC has been updated several times, to deliver compatibility with various macOS updates (see the iODBC change log) —
iODBC version | iODBC version release date | updated for macOS version(s) | compatible with macOS version(s) | processor architectures |
---|---|---|---|---|
3.52.7 | September, 2009 | Lion (10.7.x) | Lion (10.7.x) | x86_32, x86_64 |
3.52.8 | March, 2012 | Mountain Lion (10.8.x) | Lion (10.7.x) through Mountain Lion (10.8.x) | x86_32, x86_64 |
3.52.9 | April, 2014 | Mavericks (10.9.x) | Lion (10.7.x) through Mavericks (10.9.x) | x86_32, x86_64 |
3.52.10 | February, 2015 | Yosemite (10.10.x) | Lion (10.7.x) through Yosemite (10.10.x) | x86_32, x86_64 |
3.52.12 | June, 2016 | El Capitan (10.11.x) | Lion (10.7.x) through Big Sur (11.x) | x86_32, x86_64 |
3.52.13 | July, 2019 | Catalina (10.15.x) | Lion (10.7.x) through Big Sur (11.x) | x86_32, x86_64 |
3.52.14 | February, 2021 | Big Sur (11.x) | Lion (10.7.x) through Big Sur (11.x) | x86_32, x86_64 |
3.52.15 | June, 2021 | Big Sur (11.x) | built for Mavericks (10.9.x) through Catalina (10.15.x) or for Mojave (10.14.x) through Big Sur (11.x) | built for x86_32 and x86_64 or for x86_64 and arm64 |
Also troublesome, Apple bundles only "dylib" files, while Microsoft and others depend on "Frameworks" versions of these libraries.
This takes just a few steps on your Mac.