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How to password protect an Excel file

Although to protect with password a file of Excel it is too easy, if we want to share this, we must find a safe way to send the excel sheet. It is an extra layer of protection for when we need to send files which should only be accessed by specific people. Even if we share it in a OneDrive folder to which several people have access, only those who have the specific password will be able to open it.

We have already taught you various things related to Excel from combining CSV files, opening a Numbers file in Excel, removing share access permissions, copying and pasting visible cells, etc. But today, we are going to teach you how to protect your Excel file, after doing all that work that we have taught you to do previously.

Password protect an Excel file

Regardless of the data you save to an Excel file, you may want to add a password to protect them. Microsoft thought of this possibility and allows us to add a password from the same program. In this way, only those people who know the password will be able to open the file in question.

The password protection feature is available in both Mac and Windows versions. This function is quite old, although it has been improving with the passage of time; so if the version of Microsoft Office we are using is old, we will still be able to add a password to it.

Set password in Windows

  • We open the Excel file to which we want to add password protection.
  • Next, we go to File> Information at the top left of the screen.
  • We will select “Protect workbook”
  • Then, we are going to “Encrypt with password”.
  • Here we will have to add the key that we want the file to have and then confirm it.
  • After this, we are going to click on “Accept” and the chosen password will be established.

Add key to Excel file on Mac

  • We open the Excel file that we want to protect with a password.
  • Now, we go to File> Password.
  • We add the key that we are going to use and then we confirm it.
  • To finish, we click on “Accept” and the password will be set.

How to recover password protected files

Something very important that we must bear in mind is that the password that we established for an Excel file is impossible to recover. It is not linked to the Microsoft account, so even the company cannot help us.

However, there are tools that are capable of “breaking” these passwords, although the effectiveness will depend on the tools used. Microsoft discourages people from sending confidential information in Excel files that are protected by passwords, precisely because there are tools capable of decrypting them.

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