Make excel read-only & Remove read-only from excel in 6 ways

Johnson Johnson
3 min readFeb 22, 2022

You must want to make Excel Read-only or you may need to change Excel from read-only to edit, don’t you? Then you should read this article as this article may be the most complete guide when it comes to making and removing Read-only in Excel Worksheet/Workbook. So keep reading. For video guide: https://youtu.be/XQI2W7yyDvM.

Way 1:

MAKE Read-only

1. Right-click on your excel file and select Properties.

2. On the tab General, check Read-only and then click OK.

REMOVE Read-only

  1. Again, we right-click the excel file and click Properties.
  2. This time, we uncheck Read-only and save the change.

Way 2:

MAKE Read-only

  1. On the Excel Worksheet, press F12 to open Save As…
  2. Change its filename, click tools > General options.
  3. If you just want to remind others to open it as Read-only, check Read-only recommended.
  4. If you wanna set a password instead, uncheck it, and type a password. Type again and click OK.
  5. Now you can see a read-only copy. And it will ask you for a password, or you can only open it as read-only.

REMOVE Read-only

  1. Open the Excel file.
  2. Click read-only.
  3. Then just press F12 and create a new copy without a read-only password.

Way 3:

MAKE Read-only

  1. Open this excel file.
  2. Click info > Protect Workbook > Always Open Read-only.
  3. The next time you open this worksheet, it’ll say The author would like you to open *** as read-only.

REMOVE Read-only

  1. Open the Excel file.
  2. Just click No.
  3. One-click to uncheck info > Protect Workbook > Always Open Read-only.

Way 4:

MAKE Read-only

  1. Click File > Info > protect workbook > Mark as Final.
  2. This will let readers know the document is final.
  3. Now the cells in excel are totally non-editable as you can see. And the workbook structure as well.

REMOVE Read-only

  1. Just uncheck Mark as Final.
  2. And save.

Way 5:

MAKE Read-only

  1. You can click Review > Protect Sheet to make it read-only.
  2. Type a password.
  3. Reenter the password.
  4. And then click Protect Workbook, this will protect the workbook structure.
  5. Type the password and again.

REMOVE Read-only

  1. Once you want to unprotect sheet or workbook, click Review > Unprotect Sheet/Unprotect Workbook and enter your passwords.
  2. If you forgot the password already, take way 6.

Way 6:

REMOVE Read-only

  1. Step 1: Download and run iSunshare Workbook Unprotect Genius for a free trial.
  2. Step 2: Click Open and find your Excel file that needs to remove Read-only.

Step 3: One-Click on the Remove password and it’ll create a copy of your file without Read-only, no matter how you make it Read-only!

--

--

Johnson Johnson
0 Followers

Travel all around the globe with my laptop.