How to unlock cells in Excel – our guide to unlocking columns and rows

Table of Contents
Are you wondering how to unlock cells in Excel? We’ve got you covered right here.
There's a great feature in Microsoft Excel that allows you to lock cells and prevent them from being edited when you share your spreadsheet with others. However, sometimes you want others to be able to edit certain cells, so you’ll need to learn how you can unlock them.
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This is where we come in. In This guide, we will explain how to unlock cells in Excel so you can share your spreadsheets easily.
How to unlock cells in Excel
Here’s how you can quickly unlock cells in Excel.
Step
Select the cell
The first thing you need to do is select a cell you want to unlock. You can either select an individual cell or a row/column.
Step
Go to Format
Next, you need to press right-click to open a menu, and click on Format Cells.
Step
Unlock the cell
All you need to do now is uncheck the box next to Locked, and click OK. Once done, the cells will be unlocked.
If you want to unlock all cells in Excel, simply press Ctrl + A to select all cells, and then proceed with the above steps.
How to unlock all cells in a protected Excel sheet
If you want to unlock all cells in a protected Excel sheet, there’s a method for it too.
Step
Go to the Review tab
First, got to the Review tab, which is right next to the Data tab.
Step
Click on Unprotect Sheet
Next, click on the Unprotect Sheet button. Once done, all the cells will be unlocked. Don’t worry, you won’t have to enter any password for it.
Conclusion
And that's how to unlock cells in Excel! It's super easy to do and it's a great method for protecting parts of your spreadsheet so others who can access it cannot make changes or edits that can affect your data. So, only give the password for the protected spreadsheet to those who are permitted to make edits. Then you will be able to work as a group on the perfect spreadsheet.
Learn more about Excel through these helpful guides: