I believe I just answered my own question - and it is easy, and I can’t believe I overlooked it… 

If you select “save as” in the Output window, it will open the file explorer, where you can choose the file type and save to a local destination, 

I will have my user try this and see if it speeds up the process. 

Hi Joy,

Output channel’s export to excel functionality is not expected to use when there are large amount of rows. It can take hours to complete. A better option would be to write a new SQL quick report for your query and then use the RMB → Export to excel. 

This will not have an option to “save as”. It will directly open the excel file. But excel can open huge files without taking much time as in your case. So its better to give it a try.

Rusiru, 

Thank you for your response! Yes, we ultimately ended up creating a Quick Report, which reduced the export drastically. The “Save -As” from the output area did not speed up the export, even though it was not trying to provide a view copy on screen in Excel. 

The Quick Report opened/exported in a matter of just a couple minutes, rather than hours.

if its a regular report, you could schedule the report, this will give you the option of running the report possibly out of hours if its resource intensive.

Under the settings there is the option to either email the the report or create a document in document management, this file can then just be opened instantly like any normal docman attachment.

Thank you, @richardwoods !