Why Do People Not Like Macros? The Comprehensive Breakdown

December 28, 2025 •

4 min read

According to the National Cyber Security Centre, malicious macros are a highly prevalent vector for phishing and ransomware attacks, leading many organizations to block their use. This significant security risk is just one of many reasons why a tool once seen as a powerful way to automate tasks is now widely disliked by developers and IT professionals alike.

Quick Summary

This article explores the fundamental flaws in macros across various contexts, from C/C++ programming to business applications like Excel VBA. It covers the issues of insecure functionality, difficult debugging, poor maintainability, and the side effects that make them risky and frustrating.

Key Points

Security Vulnerabilities: Malicious macros are a common attack vector for phishing and ransomware, posing a significant risk to data integrity and system security.
Difficult Debugging: Since macros are text-substituted before compilation, debugging tools show expanded code, making error tracking and correction very challenging.
Poor Maintainability: In VBA and other contexts, macros are often undocumented, leading to 'legacy' code that is fragile, difficult to modify, and unmanageable by anyone but the original author.
Side-Effect Hazards: Macros can evaluate arguments multiple times, causing unintended side effects and unpredictable behavior that is difficult to replicate and debug.
Scope and Namespace Issues: C/C++ macros can cause global namespace pollution and naming conflicts because they do not respect scope, potentially breaking other parts of the code.
Outdated Technology: Alternatives like Power Query, Office Scripts, and inline functions offer more modern, robust, and secure ways to achieve automation and code reuse without the pitfalls of macros.
Lack of Audit Trails: Actions performed by macros are often not auditable, and in some cases, can wipe the undo history, making it impossible to roll back or investigate changes.

The Security Risks of Using Macros

Macros' ability to execute code automatically makes them a prime target for malicious actors. Cybercriminals embed malware in documents, relying on social engineering to trick users into enabling macros and compromising their systems.

The Rise of Macro Viruses and Ransomware

In the late 1990s, the Melissa virus demonstrated how macros could spread rapidly and cause significant disruption. Today, ransomware strains like Locky and Emotet utilize malicious macros to encrypt files and steal sensitive data. For many years, users were accustomed to clicking "Enable Content," which became a dangerous habit exploited by phishers. Although default settings have tightened in modern software, the underlying risk remains a critical concern for IT departments and security professionals.

Bypassing Security Controls

Malicious macros can bypass security controls and gain unauthorized access to systems and networks. By embedding harmful code in seemingly benign document formats, attackers can execute payloads and escalate privileges without triggering traditional security alerts. This makes it difficult to audit actions and trace security breaches back to their source.

Developer Headaches: Readability and Maintainability

For software developers, C/C++ preprocessor macros are a legacy feature fraught with risks and maintenance challenges. Because macros are a simple text-substitution mechanism, they operate outside the language's core rules and type system, leading to fragile, hard-to-maintain code.

The "Code Written vs. Code Compiled" Problem

One of the biggest issues with macros is that the code compiled is not the code written. The preprocessor performs a raw text replacement before the compiler takes over. This means that if an error occurs within the macro, debugging tools often show the expanded, preprocessed code, which can be unrecognizable and extremely difficult to step through.

Scope Pollution and Namespace Collisions

C/C++ macros do not respect scope or namespaces, which can cause unexpected behavior. A macro defined in one header file can unintentionally redefine or replace an identifier with the same name in a completely different part of the codebase. This can lead to cryptic syntax errors or subtle runtime bugs, forcing developers to resort to using all-caps for macro names to avoid collisions.

Lack of Type Safety and Unintended Side Effects

Macros are not type-safe and can produce surprising results due to operator precedence issues or side effects. A macro that evaluates its arguments multiple times can cause problems when passed an expression with a side effect, like increment_and_print(++x). This behavior is unpredictable and can introduce hard-to-find bugs into the program. The fix often involves wrapping parameters and the entire macro body in parentheses, but even this can fail in certain contexts.

The Inefficiencies of Excel Macros (VBA)

In office environments, macros written in Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) present their own unique set of frustrations, particularly in large, complex workbooks.

Poor Maintainability and 'Legacy' Code

Often written by a single user to automate a task, VBA macros are notorious for being poorly documented and difficult for others to understand. When the original developer leaves, these solutions become fragile legacy tools that break with minor changes and require specialized knowledge to fix. The macro recorder itself often produces verbose and inefficient code that must be manually refined.

Lack of Undo and Audit Trails

Running an Excel macro immediately wipes the undo stack, meaning any manual changes made before the macro was executed are permanently lost. Furthermore, macros can execute actions without leaving a clear audit trail, making it extremely difficult to troubleshoot issues or verify data accuracy, especially when multiple users have access.

Macros vs. Functions: A Comparison

To understand why macros are often disliked in programming contexts, comparing their behavior to standard functions is instructive.


Based On	Macro	Function
Type Checking	None. Textual substitution occurs regardless of data type.	Strict. Arguments are type-checked, preventing incorrect data types.
Debugging	Difficult. Errors relate to expanded, preprocessed code.	Easier. Standard debuggers can step into function calls.
Performance	Can be faster due to no function call overhead.	Generally slower, but modern compilers can inline functions for similar speed.
Scope	Global. Can cause name clashes and pollute namespaces.	Local. Adheres to block and function scope.
Side-Effects	Can cause unwanted or unintended side effects if parameters are evaluated multiple times.	Avoids side effects by evaluating arguments only once.

Modern Alternatives to Macros

As a direct response to the limitations and risks, modern software development and business applications offer safer, more robust alternatives.

Alternatives in Programming Languages

Inline Functions and Templates: In C++, inline functions and templates provide the performance benefits of macros without sacrificing type safety, scope control, or debugging ease.
Hygienic Macros: Languages like Rust and Nim implement hygienic macros, a safer macro system where variables within the macro definition are local in scope and do not interfere with the surrounding code.

Alternatives in Business Applications

Power Query and Office Scripts: For Excel, many tasks formerly requiring complex VBA can be handled by Power Query, which offers a robust and auditable data transformation engine, or Office Scripts, a JavaScript-based alternative for Office 365.
Dedicated Automation Tools: Robotic Process Automation (RPA) tools like UiPath offer more powerful and manageable solutions for automating complex business processes than legacy VBA.
Built-in Functions: Modern versions of Excel have introduced more powerful native functions (e.g., XLOOKUP, LAMBDA) that reduce the need for custom VBA code.

Conclusion: The Case for Caution

Macros, while historically valuable for code reuse and automation, have a well-earned negative reputation due to their inherent flaws. The risks associated with security vulnerabilities, compounded by the difficulty of debugging and maintaining macro-driven applications, make them a high-risk proposition for most modern use cases. While they may still find niche applications, the clear trend is toward safer, more modern alternatives that provide better security, readability, and reliability. Ultimately, the animosity towards macros stems from the significant headaches they create when things inevitably go wrong.

For a deeper dive into modern office automation, explore alternatives to macros on a community-driven resource like Reddit: Alternatives? : r/excel.

Frequently Asked Questions

A macro virus is a type of malware written in a macro language, such as Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), and embedded within a document or spreadsheet. It executes its malicious code when the user opens the infected file and enables macros, allowing it to spread and potentially damage the system.

Macros are expanded by a preprocessor before the code is compiled, meaning that debuggers show the expanded, post-substitution code rather than the original macro definition. This makes it hard to trace errors back to the source, particularly with complex or nested macros.

Common issues with Excel macros include poor maintainability due to outdated VBA code, a lack of audit trails, and the risk of macros overwriting data or being modified maliciously. They also often break the undo functionality, preventing users from recovering from accidental changes.

Macros perform simple text substitution and are not type-safe, while functions are type-checked and respect scope. This text-based replacement can lead to unexpected side effects and debugging challenges that functions avoid by handling parameters and execution in a more predictable, structured way.

Yes, macros remain a major security threat, with malicious actors continuing to use them for ransomware and phishing attacks. While modern software defaults often block macros from unknown internet sources, social engineering is still used to trick users into enabling them.

Yes, but with extreme caution and in very limited, specific contexts. Organizations can implement strict security policies, such as disabling macros by default and only allowing digitally signed macros from trusted, internally developed sources. However, the safer modern alternatives mean even these limited use cases are diminishing.

For business users, alternatives to Excel VBA include Power Query for data manipulation, Office Scripts (JavaScript) for automation in Microsoft 365, and modern, purpose-built business software. For developers, inline functions and templates in C++, as well as hygienic macro systems in languages like Rust, offer safer and more robust solutions.