Every growing organization needs to protect confidential information and ensure data privacy. We tend to use Excel for various purposes, from managing daily tasks to recording and forecasting yearly sales.
But is there any way to restrict access to the entire Excel file or worksheet or even a cell range?
If you are looking for the answer to this question, then you are at the right place.
This is a quick guide where we will learn how to password protect an Excel file. At the end of the guide, you will be able to easily prevent others from opening your files or limit editing permissions.
Note that I have discussed the steps, benefits, and precautions while securing an Excel file using the Protect Workbook tool. So, please make sure to read the article till the end.
Download The Example Excel Sheet
Please make sure to download the following Excel Sheet containing the datasets used to demonstrate the process of password-protecting an Excel file.
It is not mandatory, but practice is the key to success. Missing any step discussed below to protect your Excel file may expose your confidential data to undesired colleagues and even hackers.
Now, without any further ado, let’s begin.
Benefits of Excel Password Protection
Excel allows you to give controlled access to the people with whom you share your files. Securing confidential data is important in today’s digital world.
There is a built-in tool named Protect Worksheet to get this job done. Let us discuss how you can leverage this tool for various data privacy purposes:
- Privacy – By using password-protected Excel, you authorize specific people to access and edit it. This is the perfect way to improve the privacy of your confidential data.
- Access Control – Excel allows owners to assign different levels of access to shared users. You can choose whether the shared users can view, edit, or comment on your document.
- Ease of Use – Previously, spreadsheet owners used to copy and paste confidential data into a separate Excel file without knowing that there were built-in features to protect data within the same file. This unintentionally forced them to save and keep track of multiple files.
Apart from the above, it also allows users to save a lot of time and adds an extra layer of professionalism.
How to Password Protect Excel
Password-protecting your data tables in Excel takes only a few seconds. The steps are straightforward and don’t require any expert knowledge.
We will consider the following example to demonstrate the process of password-protecting an Excel file. The table contains employee data, including their full name, job title, gender, department, age, hiring date, and salary.
Now, suppose that you are an HR of a reputed organization and want to keep the above data confidential.
So, let’s begin. Our task is to password-protect the entire Excel file.
Here are the steps:
- Open the Excel
- Once your file is open, click on the “File” tab from the main menu
- You will see several options on the left-hand side
- Click on “Info“
- This will open a new page with various settings related to your Excel file, as shown below
- On the “Info” page, you will see a dropdown labeled “Protect Workbook” at the top
- Choose the “Encrypt with Password” option from the dropdown menu to protect your file with a password
- A dialog box will appear asking you to set a password
- Type in the password you want to use
- Finally, press the “OK” button
Note that you will again be asked to reenter the password for a last confirmation. Once you set a password, the color of the Password Protect icon will change, as shown below.
Please save your Excel file by clicking on the “Save” button or pressing “Ctrl + S” on your keyboard.
With this, you have password-protected your Employee information file.
Next time, when anyone tries to open the file, they must enter the password. Make sure to choose a strong password that combines Uppercase and Lowercase letters, numbers, and special characters. Avoid using easily guessable data for passwords like birthdays or names.
How to Password Protect Specific Worksheets
In the above section, we have learned to secure an entire Excel file.
But sometimes, you might want to lock only some of the files but only specific worksheets. For example, you might want your team members to access certain sheets but prevent them from editing specific worksheets that hold confidential data.
In this section, we will discuss how to password-protect specific worksheets.
We will consider the following Excel file to demonstrate the process. This file contains two sheets: Employee Data and Bonus.
Let us password-protect the “Bonus” sheet with the help of the following steps,
- Open the Excel file
- Hover to the main menu and go to the “Review” tab
- Click on the “Protect Sheet“
- A dialog box will appear asking you to set a password for the worksheet
- Enter your password in the field shown below
- Make sure to tick the checkbox labeled “Protect worksheet and contents of locked cells“
- You can also allow or restrict certain actions like inserting rows, deleting columns, or editing specific cells, as shown below
- Once you have set all your permissions and the password, click the “OK” button
- Excel will prompt you to reenter the password for confirmation
Make sure to save the file after setting the password to protect your worksheet. From now on, users won’t be able to make changes to it without the password.
How to allow Read-Only Access
We often share Excel files with others but want them to keep the data tables the same. The Protect Workbook tool allows you to password-protect the file and allow read-only access.
Here are the steps,
- Open the desired Excel file
- Hover over to the main menu and go to the “File” tab
- Click on the “Info” button
- Select the “Protect Workbook” option
- Click on “Mark As Final” from the available dropdown options
- Excel will show a notification saying the workbook will be marked as final and then saved
- Click the “OK” button
That’s it! You are done.
Now, any user who opens it will see a notification that the file is read-only. This method doesn’t involve any password, but it acts as a safeguard to ensure that the file is not unintentionally edited.
How to Remove a Password from an Excel File
If you no longer need a password to protect your Excel file or worksheet, you can also remove it. Removing a password from an Excel file is also straightforward.
However, note that removing the password means allowing everyone opening the file to edit the information. Every user can view, edit, and delete the information without any limitations.
The Version History tool tracks each user’s changes. It is a built-in tool that enhances team collaboration.
Here are the steps to remove passwords from an Excel,
- Open the Excel file that has password protection
- You need to enter the assigned password to access the file
- Navigate to the main menu and click on the “File” tab
- Select “Info” from the left-hand side menu
- Click on the “Protect Workbook” dropdown at the top of the screen
- Select “Encrypt with Password” from the dropdown menu
- The same dialog box where you set the password will appear, as shown below
- Remove the password by simply deleting the characters in the password field
- Click the “OK” button once done
After removing the password, make sure you save the file. Saving the changes made to Excel files is compulsory; otherwise, it won’t work as expected.
From now on, your Excel workbook will no longer require a password to open. Anyone can open it and modify the data as they require.
FAQs: How To Password-Protect Excel Workbook
Q. Can I recover an Excel file if I forget the password?
Unfortunately, Excel does not offer a built-in feature to recover passwords.
If you forget the password to your encrypted workbook, you will not be able to access the file anymore. That is why it is important to choose a password that you can remember.
I prefer noting down my spreadsheet passwords in a separate Excel file.
Q. Can I set different passwords for different worksheets in the same Excel file?
Yes, of course.
Excel allows you to set different passwords for different worksheets within the same workbook. You can share different sheets with various groups of people and ensure a separate password for each of them.
We have also discussed the steps to allow read-only access to password-protected Excel files.
Q. Can password protection be removed from a shared workbook?
Yes, of course! You can remove the password protection from a shared workbook. Follow the steps discussed above in this article to remove the password from a protected workbook.
But be cautious when removing passwords from shared files. Shared users will have full control and can edit, view, or delete the information as they wish.
Q. How do I password-protect an Excel file while allowing editing?
Excel’s Protect Workbook tool allows you to password-protect a file and enable edit access. This means that you can protect a file and allow users to edit it.
They can open the file by entering the password and start editing the content right away.
Here are the steps to password-protect Excel and allow edit access:
- Open the password-protected Excel file
- Go to the “Review” tab
- Click on “Allow Edit Ranges” in the “Protect” group
- A new dialog box will appear in which click on the “New” option to create a new range that can be edited
- Name your selected range in the field “Title“
- Select the cell(s) or range of cells that you want users to edit in the “Refers to cells“
- Set a password for editing that specific range in the “Range password” field. If you do not want to set a password, then it is quite ok
- Click the “OK” button
- In the Allow Users to Edit Ranges dialog box, select the “Protect Sheet” option
- Enter a password to protect the entire sheet
- Once done, click the “OK” button
With these steps, only the specified range of cells can be edited, while the rest of the sheet remains locked.
It is the best way of restricting specific users from editing a certain portion of a worksheet.
Q. Is password-protecting an Excel file secure enough for sensitive data?
Excel provides a wonderful feature to protect files containing sensitive information. You can use password protection to protect your important files, but it is a basic security measure. You should not expect advanced-level protection from Excel.
In simple words, Excel’s Protect Workbook tool is not the best fit for extremely sensitive information. You should choose file encryption tools or more advanced security apps to secure confidential information from unauthorized access.
To Summarize: How To Lock Excel File
Business owners leverage many software to ensure smooth and secure operations. Such applications boast role management tools to restrict access to particular information as configured by the admins or business owners.
Compared to dedicated information protection tools, Excel offers a basic and simple solution to secure your data.
You can follow the steps above to assign a strong password to safeguard sensitive data stored in an Excel file. Whether you are protecting the entire workbook, a specific worksheet, or setting a read-only mode, the process is simple, and even new Excel users can do it within a few seconds.
Feel free to comment below if you are stuck somewhere or having any particular error while password-protecting an Excel file. Our team will answer all of your questions as soon as possible.
Also, for more tips and tricks on using Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets like a pro, please explore our blog section.