With the advent of the Internet and cloud-based technology, collaboration and information exchange have become a breeze. Google Sheets has been the leader in the spreadsheets space. As easy as it has become to work on these ubiquitous applications, it is equally secure the data on the Google Sheets files. This article explains the procedure to protect cells or pages in Google Sheets.
To lock cells in Google Sheets, you protect them. Pick a range, a row, a column, or a whole sheet tab, then decide who can still edit it, or let people edit after a warning. Excel also lets you lock cells, but the steps are different there. See how to lock and protect an Excel workbook.
Why protect cells or pages in Google Sheets?
Most of us use Google Sheets because of the ease with which we can share the spreadsheet files with others. While this has made our work life easier, it also comes with certain concerns. Let us consider an example. A VP of sales in a retail store chain wants to have the sales figures from all the regions in one spreadsheet. Accordingly, he has shared the file to his sales team where each sales manager inputs the sales data corresponding to his/her region. A summary sheet consolidates the data into one place, where he gets to compare the performance across regions.
While all of this is in place, the VP doesn’t want his sales team to accidentally manipulate any formulas or numbers on the summary sheet. This scenario definitely calls for a solution that can protect cells or pages in Google Sheets. We explain how to do this below. Here’s how the summary sheet looks like.
How to lock cells in Google Sheets
There are two ways to open the protection settings for a cell: the right-click menu and the Data menu. Both lead to the same sidebar.
Use the right-click menu
1. Right-click the cell you want to lock and go to View more cell actions > Protect range.
2. In the sidebar that appears, click “+ Add a sheet or range”.
3. Confirm the cell you want to lock matches the value in the sidebar (B4 in the example) and click “Set permissions”.
4. Confirm that “Only you” is selected from the drop menu in the window and click “Done”.
Use the Data menu
You can also go to Data > Protect sheets and ranges. The screenshots below come from an older version of Google Sheets, where the menu item was called Protected sheets and ranges.
The VP is looking to protect the cells A1 through C4 which contain information that should not be changed. To do so, we navigate to Data > Protected sheets and ranges.
In doing so, we see sidebar on the right side of the screen. Now we click on the Add sheet or range button.
Now, we give a description of our choice to explain what this means if we ever came back to it in the future. We ensure that Range button is clicked and the corresponding field shows ‘All Regions’!A1:C4.
Now we click on the Set permissions button. On the options window that pops us, we can set the permissions of our choice. We may either choose to just configure it to show a warning message when another user tries to change a protected cell. Or, we can set it so that no one can edit these cells. Or even set a custom list of users who can edit the cells. In this case, we leave it as shown in the image below. Finally, we click on the Done button.
How to lock a row or column so others can’t edit it
Rows and columns lock the same way as cells. The only difference is where you right-click: on the row number or on the column letter.
Lock a row
1. Right-click the number of the row you want to lock and go to View more row actions > Protect range.
2. Confirm the row you want to lock matches the value in the sidebar (4:4 in the example) and click “Set permissions”.
3. Confirm that “Only you” is selected from the drop menu in the window and click “Done”.
Lock a column
The same steps apply if you want to lock/protect a column in Google Sheets:
1. Right-click the letter of the column you want to lock and go to View more column actions > Protect range.
2. Confirm the column you want to lock matches the value in the sidebar (B:B in the example) and click “Set permissions”.
3. Confirm that “Only you” is selected from the drop menu in the window and click “Done”.
To keep a row or column on screen while you scroll, rather than stop edits, freeze it instead. See how to freeze rows and columns in Google Sheets.
How to protect a sheet in Google Sheets
Protecting a sheet locks one tab of your spreadsheet. The other tabs stay editable unless you protect them too.
There can be other instances when we want to protect an entire sheet or almost all of it. In this case, we can opt for the Sheet button as shown in the image below. We can even exempt cells that we do not want to protect from the protected sheet.
From the sheet tab
You can also start from the tab at the bottom of the screen:
1. Right-click the tab of the sheet you want to lock and choose Protect sheet.
2. Confirm the sheet you want to lock matches the value in the sidebar (“Sheet1” in the example) and click “Set permissions”.
3. Confirm that “Only you” is selected from the drop menu in the window and click “Done”.
Choose who can edit, or only show a warning
When you click “Set permissions” while locking a cell, the window that opens is called “Range editing permissions”.
This window allows you to choose who can edit your chosen cell or to leave a warning message for other users. The following steps will show you how to give editing permission to other users:
1. Follow the first three steps of the right-click method under How to lock cells in Google Sheets, above.
2. When the “Range editing permissions” window opens, click the drop menu containing “Only you” and select “Custom”.
3. In the box labeled “Add editors:”, insert the names of the users to whom you want to give permission and click “Done”. These users can now edit your chosen cell too.
Now, what happens when another user tries to edit one of these protected cells? Here’s how it prevents them.
To leave a warning message for other users when the Range editing permissions menu is open, select “Show a warning when editing this range” and click “Done”.
Although other users can still edit the contents of your chosen cell, the warning informs them that you want to protect this value.
You can also warn or reject users from editing important formulas within your Google Sheet. Often there are several cells that impact a formula used within Google Sheets – one accidental edit can impact the entire function. Protect the cells your formulas depend on, with a warning or a restriction, so one stray edit can’t break the calculation.
How to unlock cells in Google Sheets
To unlock a cell that you have locked, follow these four simple steps:
1. Go to Data > Protect sheets and ranges.
2. Click the locked cell in the sidebar at the right side of your screen.
3. Click the trash can symbol beside the description box.
4. Confirm the unlocking by clicking “Remove”.
Excel works the other way around: every cell starts out locked, and the lock only applies once you protect the sheet. Here’s how to unlock cells in Excel.
This is how you protect cells or pages in Google Sheets! Feel free to read the following blog posts and learn how to only temporarily share your spreadsheet data with others or how to name ranges or cells in Google Sheets.
If you want a whole team to edit the file instead, see how to make Google Sheets editable by multiple users.
Protected ranges stop edits, but anyone you share the file with can still see it. To keep people from opening the data at all, see how to password protect a Google Sheet.
In Excel, you can lock sheets and whole files with a password. If you later need to edit one of them, here is how to remove a password from Excel.
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