{"id":6245,"date":"2017-05-17T11:58:36","date_gmt":"2017-05-17T09:58:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/?p=6245"},"modified":"2023-11-30T20:53:56","modified_gmt":"2023-11-30T19:53:56","slug":"how-to-lock-cells-in-excel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/blog\/how-to-lock-cells-in-excel\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Lock Cells in Excel"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Have you encountered a scenario where you do not want to lock the whole sheet, but just a couple of cells in your Excel worksheet?<\/p>\n<p>Locking an entire sheet is straightforward, but <strong>locking separate cells<\/strong> is a different story.<\/p>\n<p>Let us say, we have this single cell that we want to lock in our Excel worksheet:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/How-to-Lock-Cells-1.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"How to Lock Cells in Excel\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-6247\" src=\"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/How-to-Lock-Cells-1.jpg\" alt=\"How to Lock Cells in Excel\" width=\"144\" height=\"92\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Here is the game plan:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>All of the cells are locked by default, however locked cells have no effect until you have\u00a0<strong>protected the worksheet<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>So we will <strong>unlock all<\/strong> of the cells<\/li>\n<li>Then select the single target cell and <strong>lock it<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>After that, we will\u00a0<strong>protect the worksheet<\/strong> and <strong>our target cell will now be locked<\/strong>!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I explain how How <a href=\"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/blog\/lock-cells-in-excel\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">to Lock Cells in Excel<\/a> below:<\/p>\n<div class=\"after-post-box\">\n<p><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/3t1J1kEsHHw?rel=0 \" width=\"800\" height=\"400\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"width: 0px;overflow: hidden;line-height: 0\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><\/iframe><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/c\/MyExcelOnlinecomtutorials?sub_confirmation=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignmiddle wp-image-111468 size-full\" style=\"vertical-align: middle\" src=\"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/1.yt_.png\" alt=\"\" title=\"\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"line-two\"><a class=\"IRPP_minimalist icon-download button small\" href=\"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/How-to-Lock-Cells.xlsx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" data-leadbox=\"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/How-to-Lock-Cells.xlsx\" data-leadbox-id=\"147284833f72a2:12f08263ab46dc\"><span class=\"ctaText px-3 text-capitalize\">Download excel workbook<i class=\"fa fa-download\"><\/i><\/span><span class=\"postTitle px-3\">How-to-Lock-Cells.xlsx<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"line-two\">\n<\/div>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff0000\"><strong>STEP 1:<\/strong> <\/span>Select\u00a0all of the cells by <strong>clicking the upper left corner<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/How-to-Lock-Cells-2.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"How to Lock Cells in Excel\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-6248\" src=\"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/How-to-Lock-Cells-2.jpg\" alt=\"How to Lock Cells in Excel\" width=\"719\" height=\"341\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/How-to-Lock-Cells-2.jpg 719w, https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/How-to-Lock-Cells-2-300x142.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 719px) 100vw, 719px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff0000\"><strong>STEP 2:<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0Right click any cell and select\u00a0<strong>Format Cells:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/How-to-Lock-Cells-3.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"How to Lock Cells in Excel\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-6249\" src=\"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/How-to-Lock-Cells-3.jpg\" alt=\"How to Lock Cells in Excel\" width=\"213\" height=\"353\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/How-to-Lock-Cells-3.jpg 213w, https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/How-to-Lock-Cells-3-181x300.jpg 181w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 213px) 100vw, 213px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h2><\/h2>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff0000\"><strong>STEP 3:<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0Ensure <strong>Locked\u00a0<\/strong>is unticked. \u00a0This will unlock our entire sheet. \u00a0<strong>Click OK.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/How-to-Lock-Cells-4.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"How to Lock Cells in Excel\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-6250\" src=\"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/How-to-Lock-Cells-4.jpg\" alt=\"How to Lock Cells in Excel\" width=\"529\" height=\"465\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/How-to-Lock-Cells-4.jpg 529w, https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/How-to-Lock-Cells-4-300x264.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 529px) 100vw, 529px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff0000\"><strong>STEP 4:<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0Right click on our target cell and select\u00a0<strong>Format Cells:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/How-to-Lock-Cells-5.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"How to Lock Cells in Excel\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-6251\" src=\"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/How-to-Lock-Cells-5.jpg\" alt=\"How to Lock Cells in Excel\" width=\"379\" height=\"198\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/How-to-Lock-Cells-5.jpg 379w, https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/How-to-Lock-Cells-5-300x157.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 379px) 100vw, 379px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff0000\"><strong>STEP 5:<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0Ensure <strong>Locked\u00a0<\/strong>is ticked this time. This will lock our target cell.\u00a0<strong>Click OK.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/How-to-Lock-Cells-6.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"How to Lock Cells in Excel\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-6252\" src=\"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/How-to-Lock-Cells-6.jpg\" alt=\"How to Lock Cells in Excel\" width=\"529\" height=\"465\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/How-to-Lock-Cells-6.jpg 529w, https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/How-to-Lock-Cells-6-300x264.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 529px) 100vw, 529px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff0000\"><strong>STEP 6:<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0Now it is time to protect our Excel sheet and see the locking in action!<\/p>\n<p>Right-click on the Worksheet Name and select <strong>Protect Sheet (or go to the ribbon menu and select Review &gt; Protect Sheet)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/How-to-Lock-Cells-7.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"How to Lock Cells in Excel\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-6253\" src=\"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/How-to-Lock-Cells-7.jpg\" alt=\"How to Lock Cells in Excel\" width=\"247\" height=\"295\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff0000\"><strong>STEP 7:<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0Type in a password and <strong>Click\u00a0OK. \u00a0<\/strong>In our example, I typed in <strong><em>excel<\/em>\u00a0<\/strong>as the password.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/How-to-Lock-Cells-8.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"How to Lock Cells in Excel\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-6254\" src=\"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/How-to-Lock-Cells-8.jpg\" alt=\"How to Lock Cells in Excel\" width=\"274\" height=\"308\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/How-to-Lock-Cells-8.jpg 274w, https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/How-to-Lock-Cells-8-267x300.jpg 267w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 274px) 100vw, 274px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff0000\"><strong>STEP 8:<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0Retype the\u00a0password and <strong>Click\u00a0OK. \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/How-to-Lock-Cells-9.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"How to Lock Cells in Excel\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-6255\" src=\"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/How-to-Lock-Cells-9.jpg\" alt=\"How to Lock Cells in Excel\" width=\"302\" height=\"192\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/How-to-Lock-Cells-9.jpg 302w, https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/How-to-Lock-Cells-9-300x191.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 302px) 100vw, 302px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff0000\"><strong>STEP 9:<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0If you try\u00a0editing your target cell now, Excel will not allow you to&#8230;And you are able to edit the other cells just fine!<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/How-to-Lock-Cells-10.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"How to Lock Cells in Excel\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-6256\" src=\"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/How-to-Lock-Cells-10.jpg\" alt=\"How to Lock Cells in Excel\" width=\"863\" height=\"209\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/How-to-Lock-Cells-10.jpg 863w, https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/How-to-Lock-Cells-10-300x73.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/How-to-Lock-Cells-10-768x186.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 863px) 100vw, 863px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff\"><strong>How to Lock Cells in Excel<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/100-5.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-5924 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/530x300-Pivot.jpg\" width=\"530\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/530x300-Pivot.jpg 530w, https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/530x300-Pivot-300x170.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 530px) 100vw, 530px\" alt=\"\" title=\"\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Have you encountered a scenario where you do not want to lock the whole sheet, but just a couple of cells in your Excel worksheet? Locking an entire sheet is straightforward, but locking separate cells is a different story. Let us say, we have this single cell that we want to lock in our Excel [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17587,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cos_headline_score":0,"cos_seo_score":0,"cos_headline_text":"How to Lock Cells in Excel","cos_headline_has_been_analyzed":false,"cos_last_analyzed_headline":[],"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[6,7,10,41],"tags":[248,247,249,179],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6245"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6245\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}