How to password protect an Excel file
Microsoft Excel is a powerful spreadsheet tool; it’s able to process a large amount of data, supports macros, and supports a large, diverse number of mathematical and statistical formulae. To that end, it’s often used in place of a database because it’s easier to use and not many people are familiar with how a database works.
Password protect Excel file
Regardless of what sort of data is stored in an Excel file, you may need to password protect it. To that end, Microsoft Excel has the same document management features that other Microsoft 365 apps have. The ability to add password protection is built into it.
How to password protect Excel file
Password protection is available on both the Mac and the Windows version of Excel. It’s a fairly old feature so even if your version of Office or Microsoft Office is many years, old, you will be able to add password protection to it.
On Windows 10 (or older/newer)
- Open the Excel file that you want to add password protection to.
- Go to File>Info.
- Select Protect Workbook.
- Select Encrypt with password.
- Enter the password you want to use, and then confirm the password.
- Click Ok and the password will be set.
On macOS;
- Open the Excel file that you want to add password protection to.
- Go to File>Passwords.
- Enter the password you want to use, and then confirm it.
- Click Ok and the password will be set.
Recovering password protected files
The password that you set for an Excel file cannot be recovered, not even on the system that you set it up on. It is in no way tied to your Microsoft account and if you forget it, Microsoft can’t help you out.
There may be tools that can help break the password but how effective they are really depends on the tools. Microsoft generally discourages users from sending sensitive information in password protected Excel sheets (or Word documents) so it’s possible the password can be cracked with the right tool.
Conclusion
If you choose to password protect an Excel file, you will need to figure out a secure way to share the password if you plan on sharing the file. Even if you were to upload the file to a shared OneDrive folder, everyone that has access to the folder will still need the password to the file to open it. The password is in no way connected to any online account or any sharing feature that Excel or OneDrive have. On that note, make sure you use a password that you do not use for your own, personal accounts.
