How can I create a progress bar in Excel VBA?

Sometimes a simple message in the status bar is enough:

This is very simple to implement:

Dim x               As Integer 
Dim MyTimer         As Double 

'Change this loop as needed.
For x = 1 To 50
    ' Do stuff
    Application.StatusBar = "Progress: " & x & " of 50: " & Format(x / 50, "0%")
Next x 

Application.StatusBar = False

Here's another example using the StatusBar as a progress bar.

By using some Unicode Characters, you can mimic a progress bar. 9608 - 9615 are the codes I tried for the bars. Just select one according to how much space you want to show between the bars. You can set the length of the bar by changing NUM_BARS. Also by using a class, you can set it up to handle initializing and releasing the StatusBar automatically. Once the object goes out of scope it will automatically clean up and release the StatusBar back to Excel.

' Class Module - ProgressBar
Option Explicit

Private statusBarState As Boolean
Private enableEventsState As Boolean
Private screenUpdatingState As Boolean
Private Const NUM_BARS As Integer = 50
Private Const MAX_LENGTH As Integer = 255
Private BAR_CHAR As String
Private SPACE_CHAR As String

Private Sub Class_Initialize()
    ' Save the state of the variables to change
    statusBarState = Application.DisplayStatusBar
    enableEventsState = Application.EnableEvents
    screenUpdatingState = Application.ScreenUpdating
    ' set the progress bar chars (should be equal size)
    BAR_CHAR = ChrW(9608)
    SPACE_CHAR = ChrW(9620)
    ' Set the desired state
    Application.DisplayStatusBar = True
    Application.ScreenUpdating = False
    Application.EnableEvents = False
End Sub

Private Sub Class_Terminate()
    ' Restore settings
    Application.DisplayStatusBar = statusBarState
    Application.ScreenUpdating = screenUpdatingState
    Application.EnableEvents = enableEventsState
    Application.StatusBar = False
End Sub

Public Sub Update(ByVal Value As Long, _
                  Optional ByVal MaxValue As Long= 0, _
                  Optional ByVal Status As String = "", _
                  Optional ByVal DisplayPercent As Boolean = True)

    ' Value          : 0 to 100 (if no max is set)
    ' Value          : >=0 (if max is set)
    ' MaxValue       : >= 0
    ' Status         : optional message to display for user
    ' DisplayPercent : Display the percent complete after the status bar

    ' <Status> <Progress Bar> <Percent Complete>

    ' Validate entries
    If Value < 0 Or MaxValue < 0 Or (Value > 100 And MaxValue = 0) Then Exit Sub

    ' If the maximum is set then adjust value to be in the range 0 to 100
    If MaxValue > 0 Then Value = WorksheetFunction.RoundUp((Value * 100) / MaxValue, 0)

    ' Message to set the status bar to
    Dim display As String
    display = Status & "  "

    ' Set bars
    display = display & String(Int(Value / (100 / NUM_BARS)), BAR_CHAR)
    ' set spaces
    display = display & String(NUM_BARS - Int(Value / (100 / NUM_BARS)), SPACE_CHAR)

    ' Closing character to show end of the bar
    display = display & BAR_CHAR

    If DisplayPercent = True Then display = display & "  (" & Value & "%)  "

    ' chop off to the maximum length if necessary
    If Len(display) > MAX_LENGTH Then display = Right(display, MAX_LENGTH)

    Application.StatusBar = display
End Sub

Sample Usage:

Dim progressBar As New ProgressBar

For i = 1 To 100
    Call progressBar.Update(i, 100, "My Message Here", True)
    Application.Wait (Now + TimeValue("0:00:01"))
Next