How to remove read-only from an Excel file

Find which kind of read-only you have

"Read-only" has at least six causes in Excel, and each one has its own switch. Nothing you change inside the sheet helps until you've found the right one. The quickest clue is what you see when the file opens: a coloured bar under the ribbon, a prompt before it opens, or just the words [Read-Only] after the file name in the title bar.

The table above maps each clue to its fix. If you see "File in Use" or "locked for editing by" a name, that's a different problem: someone, or a stuck copy of Excel, has the file open. The Excel file locked for editing guide covers that one.

1. Protected View: click Enable Editing

Files downloaded from the internet or opened from an email attachment open in Protected View, with a yellow bar and an Enable Editing button. You can read and scroll, but not type. Click Enable Editing if you trust where the file came from. If the same file opens this way every time, right-click it in File Explorer, choose Properties, and tick Unblock at the bottom of the General tab.

The Excel Protected View guide explains the red version of the bar and the Trust Center settings.

2. Mark as Final or Always Open Read-Only

Both are polite requests from whoever saved the file, not security. Mark as Final shows a yellow Marked as Final bar and hides the ribbon commands. Always Open Read-Only shows a bar saying the author would like you to open the file as read-only unless you need to make changes. Both have an Edit Anyway button that unlocks the copy you have open.

To stop it happening for everyone who opens the file next, turn the setting off and save. You need to be able to save over the file, so this works on your own files or shared files you have edit rights to.

1. Click Edit Anyway on the bar.
2. Go to File > Info and click Protect Workbook.
3. Click Always Open Read-Only (or Mark as Final) once. It's a toggle, so clicking it again turns it off.
4. Press Ctrl+S to save. The next time anyone opens the file, the bar is gone.

3. A password prompt, or "open as read-only?" on opening

If a box asks for a password "for write access, or open read only", the file has a password to modify. Without the password you can only open it read-only. If a box asks whether to open as read-only and you can say No, it has Read-only recommended ticked. Both live in the same place, behind the Save As dialog. If you don't know the password, ask the person who set it; Cellwise doesn't cover getting around passwords on files that aren't yours.

1. Open the file with the password (or click No on the read-only prompt).
2. Go to File > Save As > Browse, so the full Save As window opens.
3. Click Tools, next to the Save button, and choose General Options.
4. Clear the Password to modify box and untick Read-only recommended. Leave Password to open alone unless you mean to remove that too.
5. Click OK, then Save, and Yes to replace the file.

4. [Read-Only] in the title bar with no bar or prompt

This comes from where the file is, not from Excel. Check these in order. Right-click the file in File Explorer, choose Properties, and look at Attributes on the General tab: if Read-only is ticked, untick it and click OK. Files copied from a CD, an old backup or some download tools arrive with that tick set.

If you opened the workbook from inside a zip file, Excel is showing a temporary copy. Close it, right-click the zip, choose Extract All, and open the extracted file. Email attachments opened straight from the message are also temporary copies: use File > Save As to keep your own version, or save the attachment to a folder first.

If the file is on a network drive, a SharePoint site or a link someone shared with you as view only, you may not have permission to change it. Ask the owner for edit access, or save a copy to your own Documents folder to work on. A USB stick or SD card with its write-protect switch on does the same thing.