A protected Excel sheet stops you from editing certain cells. If you need to make changes, you'll have to unprotect it — which is easy if you know the password (or if there isn't one). Here's how, plus what to do about the password.
Unprotecting a sheet you can edit
If the sheet was protected without a password, or you know the password:
- Go to the Review tab.
- Click Unprotect Sheet (in the Protect group).
- If a password was set, enter it when prompted.
- The sheet is now unprotected and fully editable.
That's the normal case. If no password was set, step 3 is skipped and the sheet unprotects immediately.
Protecting a sheet (the reverse)
For reference, to protect a sheet: Review > Protect Sheet, optionally set a password, and choose what users are allowed to do. This is what someone did to lock the sheet in the first place.
Sheet protection vs workbook protection vs file encryption
These are three different things people confuse:
- Protect Sheet — locks cells on one worksheet from editing. Removed via Review > Unprotect Sheet.
- Protect Workbook — stops adding, deleting, or reordering sheets. Removed via Review > Protect Workbook (toggle off).
- File encryption / open password — a password required just to open the file. This is set under File > Info > Protect Workbook > Encrypt with Password. Without this password, you can't open the file at all, and there's no legitimate easy bypass.
Make sure you know which one you're dealing with, because they're removed in different places.
If you don't know the password
This is where honesty matters. Sheet protection is deliberately weak — it's designed to prevent accidental edits, not to provide real security. There are known techniques and tools that can remove sheet protection without the password, and a web search will surface them.
However, you should only do this on files you own or are authorized to edit. Removing protection from someone else's file to access data you weren't meant to change is a different matter entirely. The legitimate path when you don't own the file is to contact whoever protected it and ask for the password or an unprotected copy.
File-open encryption is different — that's genuine encryption and can't be casually bypassed. If you've forgotten the password to open your own file, Microsoft can't recover it either; strong passwords on encrypted files are effectively unrecoverable, which is by design.
The takeaway
To unprotect a sheet you have rights to: Review > Unprotect Sheet, and enter the password if prompted. Know the difference between sheet protection (weak, editing-focused), workbook protection (structure), and file encryption (strong, open-password). If you don't have the password, the right move for a file you don't own is to ask the owner — not to bypass protection on data you weren't authorized to change.