How to Protect 1 Sheet in Excel (Desktop, Web, Mac and iPad)

To protect just one sheet in Excel, open that sheet, go to the Review tab and click Protect Sheet, then choose what users are still allowed to do, optionally add a password, and click OK. Protection only applies to the sheet you were on, so every other sheet in the workbook stays editable.

That is the quick version. The rest of this guide covers the step most people miss (unlocking the cells you still want people to type in), the options in the Protect Sheet dialog, how it works in Excel for the web, Mac and iPad, and what sheet protection does not do. Steps reflect Microsoft’s documentation as of November 2026; menu labels can shift between Excel updates.

How sheet protection actually works

Every cell in Excel has a Locked setting, and by default all cells are locked. According to Microsoft’s Lock cells to protect them page, that setting has no effect until you protect the worksheet.

So protecting a sheet is a two-part job:

1. Decide which cells should stay editable and unlock them.
2. Turn on protection for the sheet.

If you skip the first part, the whole sheet becomes read-only, which is fine for a finished report but annoying for a form or input template.

Step-by-step: protect one sheet in Excel for Windows or Mac

1. Unlock the cells people should still edit (optional)

1. Click the tab of the sheet you want to protect.
2. Select the cells or ranges that should remain editable, such as input fields.
3. Right-click the selection and choose Format Cells (or press Ctrl+1 on Windows).
4. Open the Protection tab and clear the Locked check box.
5. Click OK.

Formulas, headings and anything else you leave alone stay locked.

2. Turn on Protect Sheet

1. With the same sheet active, go to Review and select Protect Sheet. (On Windows you can also right-click the sheet tab and choose Protect Sheet.)
2. Make sure Protect worksheet and contents of locked cells is checked.
3. Under Allow all users of this worksheet to, tick the actions you want to permit (see the table below).
4. Type a password if you want one, then click OK and re-enter it to confirm.

Only the active sheet is protected. Repeat the steps on any other sheet you want locked; each one can have different settings and a different password.

3. Unprotect it later

Go to Review and select Unprotect Sheet, or use File > Info > Protect > Unprotect Sheet. If you set a password, Excel asks for it. Microsoft’s Protect a worksheet article warns that it cannot recover a lost password, so keep it somewhere safe.

What the “Allow users to” options mean

The check boxes in the Protect Sheet dialog decide what remains possible on a protected sheet. Here are the defaults and the ones people most often change:

A practical tip: if you clear Select locked cells and leave Select unlocked cells on, users can only land on the input cells, which makes simple forms much easier to fill in. Be aware that sort and filter options have extra requirements in some cases, so test the sheet after protecting it.

Letting specific ranges stay editable

Unlocking cells (step 1 above) is the simplest approach. Desktop Excel for Windows also offers Review > Allow Edit Ranges, which lets you define named ranges that can be edited on a protected sheet, optionally with their own password. Microsoft documents this in Lock or unlock specific areas of a protected worksheet.

One thing that catches people out, raised repeatedly on Microsoft’s Tech Community forums: an editable range does not override the sheet’s protection settings. Someone allowed to edit a range still can’t insert or delete rows unless you ticked those options in the Protect Sheet dialog.

Protecting one sheet in Excel for the web

Excel for the web handles this through a task pane rather than a dialog:

1. Open the sheet and go to Review > Manage Protection.
2. Switch protection on in the pane on the right.
3. Use the Unlocked ranges section to add ranges that stay editable, giving each one a name, and adjust the allowed actions under the options section.
4. Optionally set a sheet protection password.

The ICAEW Excel Community notes that once a password is set, it is needed to reopen Manage Protection and change settings. Microsoft also states that worksheet protection is not available in Excel for the web for U.S. Government Community Cloud High (GCCH) and Department of Defense (DoD) environments.

Some users on Microsoft’s forums have reported trouble removing unlocked ranges created in the web app. If that happens, try refreshing or another browser, or make the change in desktop Excel.

Protecting one sheet on iPad

Sheet protection arrived in Excel for iPad later than on other platforms. Neowin reported that the iPad app gained the ability to protect sheets, pause and resume protection, and manage locked and unlocked ranges, with options in both the sheet tab menu and Review > Protection. The reported minimum version was Excel for iPad 2.90.930.0, so update the app if you don’t see the option.

Sheet vs workbook vs file protection

Excel has three protection features with similar names, and they do different jobs:

If your goal is “nobody can delete or rename this sheet,” you need Protect Workbook as well, because sheet protection doesn’t cover the sheet tab itself. Combining the two is common for templates.

What sheet protection does not do

Treat sheet protection as a guard against accidental changes, not as security. Office Watch puts the rule of thumb neatly: if the password is optional, there’s no encryption. Their testing found that the contents of a protected sheet are stored unencrypted in the .xlsx file, and that removing sheet protection without the password is not difficult for someone determined to do it.

In practice that means:

• Don’t rely on Protect Sheet to hide salaries, personal data or anything confidential. Move that data out of the file or encrypt the whole workbook.
• Hidden or protected sheets can still be read by anyone who has the file.
• Use protection to keep formulas and layouts safe from well-meaning colleagues, which is what it does well.

Quick troubleshooting

• Protect Sheet is greyed out: make sure you aren’t still editing a cell (press Esc to leave edit mode), then try again.
• Users still can’t type in a cell: that cell is still locked. Unprotect the sheet, clear Locked in Format Cells, and protect it again.
• The whole workbook got locked: you probably used Protect Workbook or file encryption rather than Protect Sheet. Check the table above.
• Sorting fails on a protected sheet: make sure Sort is ticked and that the cells being sorted are unlocked.