In this article, you will learn how to protect sheets in Google Sheets. This function is helpful in protecting content (e.g., complicated formulas, raw data resources, a series of calculations) in Google Sheets by preventing intentional edits and unintentional changes by collaborators.
*If you are OK for others to edit data in the selected range, but you want to warn them before their upcoming edits, choose “Show a warning when editing this range”. If you don’t allow any edits in the selected area, click “Restrict who can edit this range” and appoint only yourself as an eligible editor. At this point, if you choose “Custom”, you can add eligible editors.
You can lock sheets almost the same way as you protect a range of cells.
*If you are OK for others to edit in the selected range, but you want to warn them before their edits, choose “Show a warning when editing this range”. If you don’t allow any edits in the selected area, click “Restrict who can edit this range” and appoint only yourself as an eligible editor. At this point, if you choose “Custom”, you can add eligible editors.
Here is an example where cell protection is beneficial for an owner of a sheet. Imagine there is an accountant who prepares a financial report for a client in Google Sheets and shares it with the client to ask for their input. However, he doesn’t want his client to edit a particular part of the spreadsheet. In this case, the accountant can achieve the ideal setting by locking specific cells or entire sheets except for certain cells.
Check Live Client Reporting Template for Excel & Google Sheets prepared by LiveFlow to see how you can streamline reporting for your clients.
If you don’t get the solution to your question in this article or you are interested in learning more basic tips in Google Sheets, you may find the answers in the following articles.
Move onto the articles below to learn how to use Google Sheets, such as signing in, renaming, saving and printing a file, setting up notifications, and changing themes.
Google Sheets Sign-in: Explained
How to Rename a Google Sheet File
How to Save Google Sheets in Google Drive
How to Set Up Notifications in Google Sheets
How to Set Print Area in Google Sheets
Change Theme in Google Sheets: Explained
Autofill Function in Google Sheets: Explained
Go to the following articles to learn basic operations, such as redo and undo, referencing a cell on another sheet in a formula, inserting a table, and putting an image into a cell.
Redo and Undo in Google Sheets: Explained
How to Reference Another Sheet in Google Sheets
How to Make a Table in Google Sheets
How to Insert an Image into a Cell in Google Sheets
Check the following posts if you want to learn how to insert, modify, and remove comments and note or tag someone in your comment.
How to Add a Comment to a Cell in Google Sheets
How to Tag Someone in Google Sheets
Comment History in Google Sheets: Explained
How to Insert a Note in Google Sheets
How to See Edit History in Google Sheets
Read these articles to learn how to show formulas, missing toolbar, or formula bar in Google Sheets.
How to Show Formulas in Google Sheets
How to Show Formula Bar in Google Sheets
How to Show the Toolbar Missing in Google Sheets
Visit these articles to learn how to protect cells and view protected cells or ranges.
How to View Protected Ranges in Google Sheets
Are you learning this tip to visualize financial data, build a financial model, or conduct financial analysis? In that case, LiveFlow may help you automate manual workflows and update numbers in real-time. You can access various financial templates on our website, from the simple Income Statement to Multi-Currency Consolidated Financial Statement. You can also customize these templates as you want without breaking the automated data inflow.
To learn more about LiveFlow, book a demo.
Learn how to do this step-by-step in the video below 👇