Protect your sensitive Excel files

If you have sensitive excel files which you don’t want other users to access, Excel offers you 3 levels of protection.

Open Excel, go to File – Save As – Tools – General Options and select from the following options.

a. Password to open – This is the highest level of protection. It requires the user to know the password to open the workbook. Make sure you remember your password. If you lose it, there is no way to retrieve it or to open the workbook.

b. Password to modify – No password is required to open the file. The user needs a password if he makes changes and wants to save the file under the same name. This is useful when sensitive files such as budgets, costing and pricing need to be viewed by several people for comments or approval. The creator of the file may need to ensure that no changes have been made in the original file.

c. Read only - This is not high level protection and does not restrict access. Anyone has the option to open the file either as a read only or as an unprotected file. This feature is useful for preventing unintentional changes or for manipulating data but saving the file with the original data intact.

If you want to lock all data in the file so that no changes can be made, select Tools - Protection – Protect sheet and enter a password. This locks all data. A user can open the file to view it only.

To remove passwords, open the file, go to File – Save As - Tools – General Options and delete the asterisks in the password box.