STOP READ ONLY ON ALL EXCEL FILES

Question

STOP READ ONLY ON ALL EXCEL FILES

Alan Phillips 0

SOME EXCEL FILES CHANGED TO READ ONLY. HOW CAN I MAKE THOSE FILES NOT READ ONLY AND HOW I DO I PREVENT FILES BEING CONVERTED TO READ ONLY

Ryan-N 16,105 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-10-07T19:39:57.7966667+00:00

Hi Alan,

I wanted to follow up and check whether the information I previously provided has helped resolve the issue you were experiencing.

If you have any updates regarding the issue or if anything remains unclear, please don't hesitate to let me know. Feel free to share any additional information with me. I am always happy to listen and provide further assistance whenever needed.

I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Kind regards,

2 answers

Your answer

Ryan-N 16,105 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-10-07T19:39:57.7966667+00:00

Hi Alan,

I wanted to follow up and check whether the information I previously provided has helped resolve the issue you were experiencing.

If you have any updates regarding the issue or if anything remains unclear, please don't hesitate to let me know. Feel free to share any additional information with me. I am always happy to listen and provide further assistance whenever needed.

I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Kind regards,

Answer 1

Andreas Killer 144.1K Volunteer Moderator

Hi Alan,

There are various possibilities why this happens. Please read this article and review the individual points:
https://support.microsoft.com/office/collab-files/why-did-my-file-open-read-only

Andreas.

0 comments

Answer 2

Hi Alan,

Welcome to the Microsoft Q&A forum.

To turn off Read-only mode for Excel files, you can try the following steps:

Disable the Read-only attribute for the file

Right-click the Excel file > select Properties > uncheck Read-only > select Apply > OK.

Disable the option to always open the file in Read-only mode in Excel

Open the Excel file > select File > Info > Protect Workbook.
Uncheck Always Open Read-Only.

If the file was shared with you by someone else

If the file was shared with you and you only have read-only access, you will need to contact the file owner and ask them to check your permissions and grant you Edit access.

I hope this information is helpful.

If you have any questions or need further assistance, please feel free to share them in the comments on this post so I can continue to support you.

I look forward to continuing the conversation.

If the answer is helpful, please click "Yes" and kindly upvote it.

Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.