Protecting individual cells in Google Sheets is a great way to prevent data in your spreadsheet from getting changedâaccidentally or intentionallyâby anyone viewing the sheet. Fortunately, Sheets provides a handy tool to prevents people from altering cells in your document.
Protecting Cells in Google Sheets
One of the best features of Google Sheets (and all the other Google apps)Â is the ability for anyone with edit access to collaborate on documents in the cloud. However, sometimes you donât want the people youâre sharing a document with to edit specific cells in your sheet without completely revoking their ability to edit. This where protecting specific cells comes in handy.
Fire up your browser, open a Google Sheet that has cells you want to protect, and then select the cells.
With the cells selected, open the âDataâ menu and then click âProtect Sheets and Ranges.â
The Protected Sheets and Ranges pane appears on the right. Here, you can enter a brief description and then click âSet Permissionsâ to customize the cellâs protection permissions.
By default, anyone who already has permission to edit the document is allowed to edit every cell on the page. Click the drop-down menu under âRestrict Who Can Edit This Rangeâ and then click âCustomizedâ to set who is permitted to edit the selected cells.
Under the list of people who can edit, everyone with whom youâve shared edit permissions is already selected by default. Deselect anyone you donât want to be able to edit the selected cells and then click âDone.â
Now, anytime someone without permission to edit these cells attempts to make any changes, a prompt with the following message in Sheets comes up:
How to Show a Warning Message When Editing Cells
If youâd rather people still be able to edit the cells, but instead have a warning message for anyone who tries to edit specific cells, you can do that as well.
From your Sheets document, head back to Data> Protected Sheets and Ranges in the toolbar.
Next, click the permission rule you want to alter.
Click âSet Permissions.â
Select âShow a warning when editing this rangeâ and then click âDone.â
The next time anyone tries to edit any of the protected cells, theyâre prompted with this message instead:
Protecting an Entire Sheet in Google Sheets
If you want to protect a whole sheet so that nobody except you can edit it, the easiest way is to share the sheet with them but only give them view instead of edit permission.
However, say you wanted to protect most of a sheet, but leave a few cells open to editingâ as youâd do with a form or invoice. In that case, people would still need edit permission, but it would be kind of a pain to select all the cells on the sheet except for the few on which you want to allow editing.
There is another way. You can protect the entire sheet and then allow access to specific cells.
Open up your document and head back to Data> Protected Sheets and Ranges in the toolbar.
From the Protected Sheets and Ranges pane that appears on the right, click âSheet,â choose a sheet from the drop-down menu, then click âSet Permissions.â
And, just like in the previous example for protecting cells, you will have to set who can edit the sheet in the window that opens up.
Click the drop-down menu under âRestrict Who Can Edit This Range,â and select âCustomizedâ to set who is permitted to edit the selected sheet.
Under the list of people who can edit, deselect anyone for whom you want to revoke edit permissions of this sheet and then click âDone.â
Anyone with access to your document can still open and see the contents of the sheet youâve protected, but they arenât able to make any changes or edits to the actual sheet.
How to Add Exceptions to a Protected Sheet
When protecting a whole sheet, Google Sheets locks every single cell. But if you want to grant edit access to only a few cells, you can specify which ones are editable.
Jump back to Data> Protected Sheets and Ranges from the toolbar, then from the pane that opens, click on the protected sheet rule you want to edit.
Next, toggle âExcept Certain Cellsâ and then enter the range of cells you want to be editable. Click âDone.â
Finally, if anyone tries to edit any other cells than the ones youâve made editable, theyâll see the same prompt as before, notifying them they canât do that.
How to Remove Permission Rules
To remove any of the permission rules you just made, open up the Protected Sheets and Ranges pane by going to Data> Protected Sheets and Ranges. Once here, click the rule you want to delete.
Next, click the trash bin, located next to the description of the rule.
Youâll be prompted to confirm that you want to remove the protected range or not. Click âRemove.â
After removing the protected range, anyone who had edit access to your spreadsheet will be able to edit the content in the cells/sheets that were previously protected.