Vba excel workbook protect

Excel allows you the ability to protect your Excel workbooks from changes. This tutorial will show you how to protect or unprotect workbook structure using VBA.

VBA Workbook Protection

VBA Workbook Protection allows you to lock the structure of the workbook. When a workbook is protected, users will be unable to add, delete, hide / unhide, or protect / unprotect worksheets. If you are building a model, you probably want to turn on workbook protection to prevent users (or you!) from accidentally deleting worksheets.

UnProtect Workbook VBA

To unprotect a workbook simply use the following line of code:

Workbooks("Book1").Unprotect

Note: this code will only work if the workbook was protected without a password. If it was protected with a password, you must also enter in the password to unprotect it:

UnProtect Workbook With Password

This line of code will unprotect a workbook that has been protected with a password:

Workbooks("Book1").Unprotect Password:="password"

or you can ommit Password:=

Workbooks("Book1").Unprotect "password"

UnProtect ThisWorkbook

This code will unprotect ThisWorkbook (ThisWorkbook is the workbook where the running code is stored. It will never change).

ThisWorkbook.Unprotect

or unprotect ThisWorkbook with a password:

ThisWorkbook.Unprotect "password"

UnProtect ActiveWorkbook

This code will unprotect the ActiveWorbook.

ActiveWorkbook.Unprotect

or unprotect the ActiveWorkbook with a password:

ActiveWorkbook.Unprotect "password"

UnProtect All Open Workbooks

This code will unprotect all open workbooks:

Sub UnprotectAllOpenWorkbooks()
    Dim wb As Workbook
    
    For Each wb In Workbooks
        wb.Unprotect
    Next wb

End Sub

UnProtect Workbook – Without Knowing Password

If you need to unprotect a workbook without knowing the password, there are several add-ins to help.  I would recommend Ribbon Commander.

UnProtect All Sheets in Workbook

After unprotecting a workbook, you might also want to unprotect all sheets in the workbook.  Here’s a procedure that will unprotect all sheets:

Sub UnProtectWorkbookAndAllSheets()
    Dim ws As Worksheet
    
    ActiveWorkbook.Unprotect
    For Each ws In Worksheets
        ws.Unprotect
    Next
End Sub

Protect Workbook

You can protect workbook structures in the same way as you unprotect.

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Protect Workbook No Password

This line of code will protect a workbook (no password)

Workbooks("Book1").Protect

Note: I’ll often apply workbook protection without passwords, simply to prevent accidental changes to workbooks.

Protect Workbook With Password

This code will protect the workbook structure (with a password)

Workbooks("Book1").Protect "password"

or:

Workbooks("Book1").Protect Password:="password"

Password Protect Excel File

Instead of workbook protection, you might want to password-protect an entire Excel file.  To do that using VBA, Save As the workbook with a password:

Workbooks("Book1").SaveAs "password"

Protect / UnProtect Workbook Examples

Unhide All Worksheets in Protected Workbook

This procedure will unprotect a workbook, hide all worksheets, and re-protect the workbook

Sub UnprotectWB_Unhide_All_Sheets()
    Dim ws As Worksheet
    
    ActiveWorkbook.Unprotect
    For Each ws In Worksheets
        ws.Visible = xlSheetVisible
    Next
    
    ActiveWorkbook.Protect
End Sub

Protect Workbook and All Sheets

This procedure will protect all worksheets in a workbook and then protect the workbook:

Sub ProtectWB_Protect_All_Sheets()
    Dim ws As Worksheet
    
    ActiveWorkbook.Unprotect
    
    For Each ws In Worksheets
        ws.Protect
    Next
    
    ActiveWorkbook.Protect
End Sub

You can add password protection as well:

Sub ProtectWB_Protect_All_Sheets_Pswrd()
    Dim ws As Worksheet
    
    ActiveWorkbook.Unprotect "password"
    
    For Each ws In Worksheets
        ws.Protect "password"
    Next
    
    ActiveWorkbook.Protect "password"
End Sub

To protect a workbook, you need to use VBA’s PROTECT method. By using this method, you can use a password, or even you can activate workbook protection without a password. But there’s one thing that you need to take care of the password that you use is a CASE-SENSITIVE.

Workbook.Protect "Password"

1. Specify the workbook that you want to protect.
2. Type and dot and select the protect method from the list or you can type “Protect”.
3. Enter the password that you want to set.
4. Run the code to protect the workbook.

In this tutorial, we will learn this method in different ways and we will also learn to unprotect a workbook.

Helpful Links: Run a Macro – Macro Recorder – Visual Basic Editor – Personal Macro Workbook

Protect a Workbook with Password

Below is the code that you need to use to protect a workbook with a password. In this code, you have the workbook name first and the protection method with the password.

Workbooks("Book1").Protect "test123"

And when I run this code, it locks the “Book1” workbook.

Protect a Workbook without a Password

And if you want to protect a workbook without a password you need to skip the “Password” argument, just like the following code.

Workbooks("Book1").Protect

If you are trying to protect a workbook without a password that is already protected with a password Excel will show a dialogue box to enter that password.

Unprotect a Workbook with a Password

In the same way, you can use the unprotect method to unprotect the workbook and the code for this would be like something below.

Workbooks("Book1").Unprotect "test123"

There’s one thing that you need to take care of that if you are trying to unprotect a workbook that is w

Unprotect a Workbook without a Password

And if a workbook is protected without a password you can use the same method without specifying the password argument.

Protect All the Open Workbooks

In the code below, we have FOR EACH loop to loop through all the open workbooks and protect each workbook one by one using the same protect method.

'variable to use as a workbook
Dim wb As Workbook

'loop through all the open workbooks
For Each wb In Application.Workbooks

  'condition to check workbook name
  If wb.Name <> "PERSONAL.XLSB" Then

    'protect every workbook with a password
     wb.Protect "test123"

  End If

Next wb

End Sub

As I use the personal macro workbook, I have used an IF THEN ELSE statement to skip if the workbook name is “personal.xlsb”. Make sure to take care of that as well.

Protect a Closed Workbook

You can also protect and unprotect a workbook that is closed and saved on a location. Look at the following code where I have used the location of my desktop to use the file “test.xlsx”.

Sub vba_protect_workbook()
'declare varibale to use for the workbook
Dim wb As Workbook
'open the workbook that you want to protect
Set wb = Workbooks.Open("C:UsersDellDesktoptest.xlsx")
'turn off the screen-updating to _
done everything in the backend
Application.ScreenUpdating = False
'protect the workbook
wb.Protect
'close the workbook after protecting
wb.Close SaveChanges = True 'turn off the screen-updating
Application.ScreenUpdating = True
End Sub

The above code used Workbook.Open the method to open the workbook that you want to protect and then disable the screen updating to work in the backend.

Protect All the Closed Workbooks from a Folder

The following code loops through all the workbooks that are there in the folder that you specified as the path. And then open each workbook, protect it, and close it one by one.

Sub vba_protect_all_the_workbooks()

'declare variables
    Dim wb As Workbook
    Dim myPath As String
    Dim myFile As String
    Dim myExtension As String
    Dim FldrPicker As FileDialog

'optimize macro
    Application.ScreenUpdating = False
    Application.EnableEvents = False
    Application.Calculation = xlCalculationManual

'specify the folder where workbooks are saved
    myPath = "C:UsersDellDesktopfolder"

'jump to reset setting if there's an error
    On Error GoTo ResetSettings

'target file fxtension (must include wildcard "*")
    myExtension = "*.xls*"

'target path
    myFile = Dir(myPath & myExtension)

'Loop through each Excel file in folder
    Do While myFile <> ""

        'Set variable equal to opened workbook
            Set wb = Workbooks.Open(Filename:=myPath & myFile)

        'protect workbook
            wb.Protect

        'Save and Close Workbook
            wb.Close SaveChanges:=True

        'Get next file name
            myFile = Dir

    Loop

'Message Box when task is completed
  MsgBox "Done!"

'reset setting that were change for optimization
ResetSettings:
    Application.EnableEvents = True
    Application.Calculation = xlCalculationAutomatic
    Application.ScreenUpdating = True

End Sub

More on VBA Workbooks

VBA Save Workbook | VBA Close Workbook | VBA Delete Workbook | VBA ThisWorkbook | VBA Rename Workbook | VBA Activate Workbook | VBA Combine Workbook | VBA Check IF a Workbook is Open | VBA Open Workbook | VBA Check IF an Excel Workbook Exists in a Folder| VBA Create New Workbook (Excel File)

• VBA Workbook

I agree with @Richard Morgan … what you are doing should be working, so more information may be needed.

Microsoft has some suggestions on options to protect your Excel 2003 worksheets.

Here is a little more info …

From help files (Protect Method):

expression.Protect(Password, Structure, Windows)

expression Required. An expression that returns a Workbook object.

Password Optional Variant. A string that specifies a case-sensitive password for the worksheet or workbook. If this argument is omitted, you can unprotect the worksheet or workbook without using a password. Otherwise, you must specify the password to unprotect the worksheet or workbook. If you forget the password, you cannot unprotect the worksheet or workbook. It’s a good idea to keep a list of your passwords and their corresponding document names in a safe place.

Structure Optional Variant. True to protect the structure of the workbook (the relative position of the sheets). The default value is False.

Windows Optional Variant. True to protect the workbook windows. If this argument is omitted, the windows aren’t protected.

ActiveWorkbook.Protect Password:="password", Structure:=True, Windows:=True

If you want to work at the worksheet level, I used something similar years ago when I needed to protect/unprotect:

Sub ProtectSheet()
    ActiveSheet.Protect "password", True, True
End Sub

Sub UnProtectSheet()
    ActiveSheet.Unprotect "password"
End Sub

Sub protectAll()
    Dim myCount
    Dim i
    myCount = Application.Sheets.Count
    Sheets(1).Select
    For i = 1 To myCount
        ActiveSheet.Protect "password", true, true
        If i = myCount Then
            End
        End If
        ActiveSheet.Next.Select
    Next i
End Sub