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Knowledge Center

Protecting A Range or Sheet

If you want to prevent others from changing the content of a spreadsheet, you can protect a range or a certain spreadsheet. Please note that this should not be used as a security measure. People can still view, copy, and export a protected spreadsheet.

Note:

  • Only the owner of the spreadsheet and people with manage permission can create a protection rule and are not limited by protection rules.
  • Only the owner of the spreadsheet, the people with manage permission and the creator of the rule can edit or delete a protection rule.
  • People who inherit manage permissions via Windows ACL are able to create, edit, or delete a protection rule and are not limited by protection rules.

Managing rules and permissions

To create or edit a rule for a range:

  1. Open a spreadsheet.
  2. Click the Data menu > Protected sheets and ranges, a list of protection rules will show on the right-hand side.
  3. Click the Add a sheet or range button or double-click an existing protection rule to edit.
  4. Enter a description in the field.
  5. Enter a range by typing or clicking the spreadsheet icon on the right to select a range with your mouse.
  6. Click OK.

To create or edit a rule for a sheet:

  1. Open a spreadsheet.
  2. Click the Data menu > Protected sheets and ranges, a list of protection rules will show on the right-hand side.
  3. Click the Add a sheet or range button or double-click an existing protection rule to edit.
  4. Enter a description in the field.
  5. Select a sheet.
  6. You can tick the Except certain cells checkbox and then click Add another range to exclude certain cells from this rule.
  7. Enter a range by typing or clicking the spreadsheet icon on the right to select a range with your mouse.
  8. Click OK.

To set permissions for a range or sheet:

The default setting is that anyone can edit the protected range. You can set edit permissions for a range or sheet.

  1. When adding or editing rules, click the Set permissions button to edit permissions for a range or sheet.
  2. Choose one of the following options:
    • Show a warning when editing this range: A window will pop up when people are editing the protected cells to confirm whether they really want to make an edit. This does not block them from editing.
    • Restrict who can edit this range: Only people or groups in the invitee list can edit the protected range.
  3. Click Save.

To delete a rule:

  1. Click the Data menu > Protected sheets and ranges, a list of protection rules will show on the right-hand side.
  2. Click the More icon in the upper right corner of a rule.
  3. Click Delete.