Locking in a cell in excel

Suppose that your boss wants you to protect an entire workbook, but also wants to be able to change a few cells after you enable protection on the workbook. Before you enabled password protection, you had unlocked some cells in the workbook. Now that your boss is done with the workbook, you can lock these cells.

Follow these steps to lock cells in a worksheet:

1. Select the cells you want to lock.

2. On the Home tab, in the Alignment group, click the small arrow to open the Format Cells popup window.

3. On the Protection tab, select the Locked check box, and then click OK to close the popup.

   Note: If you try these steps on a workbook or worksheet you haven’t protected, you’ll see the cells are already locked. This means that the cells are ready to be locked when you protect the workbook or worksheet.

4. On the Review tab in the ribbon, in the Changes group, select either Protect Sheet or Protect Workbook, and then reapply protection. See Protect a worksheet or Protect a workbook.

   Tip: It’s a best practice to unlock any cells that you may want to change before you protect a worksheet or a workbook, but you can also unlock them after you apply protection. To remove protection, simply remove the password.

In addition to protecting workbooks and worksheets, you can also protect formulas.

Excel for the web can’t lock cells or specific areas of a worksheet.

If you want to lock cells or protect specific areas, click Open in Excel and lock cells to protect them or lock or unlock specific areas of a protected worksheet.

Is this article up to date?

Bottom Line: Learn how to lock individual cells or ranges in Excel so that users cannot change the formulas or contents of protected cells. Plus a few bonus tips to save time with the setup.

Skill Level: Beginner

Video Tutorial

Download the Excel File

You can download the file that I use in the video tutorial by clicking below.

Protecting Your Work from Unwanted Changes

If you share your spreadsheets with other users, you’ve probably found that there are specific cells you don’t want them to modify. This is especially true for cells that contain formulas and special formatting.

The great news is that you can lock or unlock any cell, or a whole range of cells, to keep your work protected. It’s easy to do, and it involves two basic steps:

1. Locking/unlocking the cells.
2. Protecting the worksheet.

Here’s how to prevent users from changing some cells.

Step 1: Lock and Unlock Specific Cells or Ranges

Right-click on the cell or range you want to change, and choose Format Cells from the menu that appears.

This will bring up the Format Cells window (keyboard shortcut for this window is Ctrl + 1.). Choose the tab that says Protection.

Next, make sure that the Locked option is checked.

Locked is the default setting for all cells in a new worksheet/workbook.

Once we protect the worksheet (in the next step) those locked cells will not be able to be altered by users.

If you want users to be able to edit a particular cell or range, uncheck the Locked box so they are unlocked. Since cells are locked by default, most of the job will be going through the sheet and unlocking cells that can be edited by users.

I share some shortcuts to make this process faster in the Bonus section below.

Step 2: Protect the Worksheet

Now that you’ve locked/unlocked the cells that you want users to be able to edit, you want to protect the sheet. Once you protect the sheet, users cannot change the locked cells. However, they can still modify the unlocked cells.

To protect the sheet, simply right-click on the tab at the bottom of the sheet, and choose Protect Sheet… from the menu.

This will bring up the Protect Sheet window. If you want your sheet to be password protected, you have the option of entering a password here. Adding a password is optional. Click OK.

If you’ve chosen to enter a password, then you will be prompted to verify your entry after you’ve clicked OK.

With the sheet protected, users will be unable to change the cells that are locked. If they try to make changes, they will get an error/warning message that looks like this.

You can unprotect the sheet in the same way that you protected it, by right-clicking on the sheet tab. An alternative way to protect and unprotect sheets is by using the Protect Sheet button in the Review tab of the Ribbon.

The button text displays the opposite of the current state. It says Protect Sheet when the sheet is unprotected, and Unprotect Sheet when it is protected.

It’s important to note that all cells can be edited when the sheet is unprotected. After making changes you must protect the sheet again and Save the workbook before sending or sharing with other users.

3 Bonus Tips for Locking Cells and Protecting Sheets

As you can see, it is fairly simple to protect your formulas and formatting from being changed! But I’d like to leave you with three tips to help make it faster & easier for both you and your users.

1. Prevent Locked Cells From Being Selected

This tip will help make it faster and easier for your users to input data in the sheet.

Turning off the Select locked cells option prevents the locked cells from being selected with either the mouse or keyboard (arrow or tab keys). This means users will only be able to select the unlocked cells that they need to edit. They can quickly hit the Tab, Enter, or arrow keys to move to the next editable cell.

To make this change, you just uncheck the option that says “Select locked cells” on the Protect Sheet window.

After pressing OK, you will only be able to select the unlocked cells.

2. Add a button for locking cells to the Quick Access Toolbar

This allows you to quickly see the locked setting for a cell or range.

From the Home tab on the Ribbon, you can open the drop-down menu under the Format button and see the option to Lock Cell.

If you right-click on the Lock Cell option, another menu appears giving you the option to add the button to the Quick Access Toolbar.

When you select this option, the button will be added to the Quick Access Toolbar at the top of the workbook. This button will remain each time you use Excel. You can easily lock and unlock specific cells on your sheet by clicking on this button.

You can also see if the active cell locked or unlocked. The button will have a dark background if the selection is locked.

It’s important to note that this only shows the locked state of the active cell. If you have multiple cells selected, the active cell is the cell you selected first and appears with no fill shading.

Mixed Lock State

If you select a range that contains both locked and unlocked cells, you will see a solid box for the Locked checkbox in the Format Cells window. This denotes the mixed state.

You can click the checkbox to lock or unlock ALL cells in the selected range.

3. Use different formatting for locked cells

By changing the formatting of cells that are locked, you give your users a visual clue that those cells are off limits. In this example the locked cells have a gray fill color. The unlocked (editable) cells are white. You can also provide a guide on the sheet or instructions tab.

You might be wondering where I found this template for a quote. I got it from the template library. You can access the library by going to the File tab, choosing New, and using the search word “quote.”

You can find all sorts of useful templates there, including invoices, calendars, to-do lists, budgets, and more.

Conclusion

By locking your cells and protecting your sheet, you can keep your formulas safe from tampering by other users, and prevent mistakes.

I hope this simple tutorial proves helpful to you. Please leave a comment below if you have any tips or questions about locking cells, protecting sheets with passwords, or preventing users from changing cells.

Thank you! 🙂

Many users used to lock cells in Excel so that no one can modify the content of the protected cells without their permission. Thus, if you also want to restrict someone from making changes to your Excel cells then read this blog. This post contains different ways to lock Excel cells and make them protected.

What’s The Need To Lock Cells In Excel?

The plus point of locking cells in Excel is that it protects your data from the unwanted changes.

Suppose you have to share your Excel spreadsheet with other users and there are some specific cells which you don’t want to get modified. In that case, cell lock is the best trick to avoid formula and formatting changes like issues.

Way 1- Lock Cells In Excel Worksheet

Follow the below-mentioned solutions to do so:

• Choose the cells which you need to lock.
• Go to the Home tab and then from the Alignment group tap to the small arrow present across it. This will open the windows of Format Cells.

• Now in the format cell window go to the Protection tab and choose the check box of Locked After that tap to the OK button to shut off this popup window.

Note: If you are attempting these steps on the worksheet or workbook which you haven’t protected then you will find that the cells are locked already. This implies that the cell can also be locked when the workbook or worksheet is protected.

• From the excel ribbon hit the Review After that from the Changes group, you have to choose either the Protect Workbook or Protect Sheet.

• Next, you have to reapply the protection over your workbook or worksheet.

Also Read: 5 Tricks To Protect Excel Workbook From Editing

Way 2- Lock Some Specific Cells In Excel

Sometimes you just need to lock some individual cells which contain important data or formulas. In such cases, only protect the cells which you need to lock leaving the rest one as it is.

By default, entire cells are comes locked, so if you apply protection to your sheet then entire cells are also get locked.

So, make sure that only those cells are protected which you want to lock and after that only apply protection to the whole worksheet.

Follow the steps to lock some specific cells in Excel

• Choose entire worksheet and then go to the Home tab.
• After that hit, the sign of the dialog box launcher presents the alignment group.

• Now in the opened dialog box of Format Cells, got to the Protection tab and uncheck the Locked option. Hit the OK button.

• Choose the cells which you need to lock.
• Again make a tap over the dialog box launcher present in the Alignment group which is under the Home tab.
• Now again in the opened dialog box of Format Cells go to the Protection tab and make a check mark across the Locked option.

• Doing this will unlock entire cells of your worksheet except the one which you have selected for locking.
• Now go to the Review tab and then from the Changes group hit the Protect Sheet option.

• From the opened dialogue box of Protect Sheet:
• Check whether the option of ‘Protect worksheet and contents of locked cells’ is checked or not. If it’s not then check it.

• Enter the password to apply password on your sheet.

• Now specify the permission which you want to assign to other users. By default, you will see that the first two options are already selected. Using which user can easily make selection for the locked or unlocked cells.

• Apart from this you can also allow other options like inserting rows/columns or making changes in the formatting.
• Tap to the OK button.

If you are applying any password then you are asked to reconfirm it.

When the next time you try to edit those specific cells, you will get the following error message pop-up dialog box.

Way 3- Lock Excel Cells Using VBA Code

• Choose entire cells in your Excel spreadsheet.
• Now go to the Home tab first and then to cells from this cell section tap on the Format option and choose the format cells option.

• This will open a Format Cells dialogue box. On this opened dialog box, you need hit the Protection tab. Here you have un-select the option Locked.

• Now in your Excel file where name of your sheet appears. Make a right click from your mouse and choose the View Code.

• This will open Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications dialogue box. In this opened white sheet along with the dialogue box, you just need to type the below code.

• In the written code, we have selected the data range from C7 to E11. And have also applied a password like, 1234.
• After entering the complete code go to the Debug Here you will find a Run Sub/User Form (F5) option tap on it.

• Now you will see that your Excel worksheet is opening along with a password window.
• So, write same password that you as allotted in the VBA code eg: 1234.
• After doing this whenever you approach for making changes in the desired cells of the Excel. This will throw a warning message stating that “you can’t edit the cells as it is protected”.

Also Read; Top 3 Methods To Unlock Password Protected Excel File

Way 4- Protect Entire Worksheet Except Few Cells

In some cases, people also want to protect the entire worksheet by keeping some of the cells unlocked.

Well, such a situation arises when you have added interactive features in your worksheet like a drop-down list. And you want that your drop-down keeps working even when the worksheet is protected.

To accomplish this task, just follow the below-mentioned steps:

• Make a selection of the cells which you want to keep unlocked.
• Press the Control + 1 key from your keyboard.
• In the opened Format Cells dialog box go to the ‘Protection’.

• Unselect the Locked option and hit the OK button.

Now if the entire worksheet is kept protected, these particular cells should work normally.

For this you have to perform the following steps, so as to protect the entire worksheet except the selected cells:

• Hit the Review tab and then from the Changes group tap to the Protect Sheet icon.

• In the opened Protect Sheet dialog box:
• Check whether the option of ‘Protect worksheet and contents of locked cells’ is checked or not. If it’s not then check it.

• Enter the password to apply password on your sheet).

• Now specify the permission which you want to assign to other users. By default, you will see that the first two options are already selected. Using which user can easily make selection for the locked or unlocked cells.
• Apart from this you can also allow other options like inserting rows/columns or making changes in the formatting.

Way 5- Lock Formula Cells

To lock formula cells, the very first thing you need to do is unlock all the cells and then only lock the cells having the formula in it. At last protect the sheet.

Well if you don’t know how to perform all these tasks then follow the below steps:

• Choose entire cell of your worksheet.

• Now make a right click and from the listed option choose the Format Cells.
• On the opened format cell window go to the Protection tab and untick the check box of Locked option. After that hit the OK button.

• Go to the Home tab and then from the Editing group choose the Find & Select.

• Hit the Go To Special option.

• Choose Formulas and hit the OK button.

You will see that after doing these steps Excel will selects all the formula cells.

• Press the CTRL + 1 button from your keyboard.
• Go to the Protection tab and select the check box of Locked option. After that press the OK button.

Note:

If you select the check box of Hidden option then the user will not be able to see the formula within the formula bar even after choosing the formula cells.

Always keep in mind that locking cells doesn’t have any effect until and unless the worksheet is protected.

• So now it’s time to protect your Excel sheet.

After this, you will see that entire the formula cells are been locked. In case of editing these cells, firstly you need to unprotect the worksheet.

Use Excel Repair Tool to Repair/Recover Corrupted Excel Documents

MS Excel Repair Tool is a special tool that is specifically designed to repair any sort of issues, corruption, errors in Excel file. This can also easily restore entire lost Excel data including cell comments, charts, worksheet properties, and other related data.

It is a unique tool that can repair multiple corrupted Excel files in one repair cycle and restore data to a new blank Excel file or the preferred location. The tool has the ability to recover data without modifying the original formatting.

• The interface is very simple, with a large toolbar of buttons to add files or folders to the application.
• With this software, you can repair your corrupted Excel file.
• It can easily restore all corrupt excel files and also recover everything which includes cell comments, charts, worksheet properties, and other related data.
• The corrupted excel file can be restored to a new blank Excel file.
• It has the ability to recover the complete Excel file data from the file and restore them even without modifying the original formatting.

* Free version of the product only previews recoverable data.

Steps to Utilize MS Excel Repair Tool:

Related FAQs:

Bottom Line

Locking cells in Excel help you to keep the formula completely safe from being tempered by any third-party user.

Hopefully, this informative tutorial seems helpful to you on how to protect cells in excel without protecting sheets. Don’t forget to leave a comment if you have any queries or tips to share about how to lock cells in Excel and protect them.