Sometimes it’s important to protect a range of cells in your spreadsheet so no one else can edit it. Here’s how to lock cells in Google Sheets.
Locking a cell simply means making it uneditable or giving a warning to the user once they try to edit the cell. You can also choose which users you would like to allow them to edit the cells by entering their email address.
This feature is really handy and you can choose to protect any cell from any sheet, a range of cells, or the entire sheet from being edited by the specific person you choose.
How to lock cells in Google Sheets
You can protect cells from being edited in Google Sheets using the protect range feature. It’s located in the context menu. Open Google Sheets, and open the spreadsheet you want the cells to get locked.
Select the cell you want to protect. Right-click it and select Protect range.
You can click Add a sheet or range to lock the cell.
Here, you can make sure that the right range and sheet have been selected.
You can click Set permissions to finally lock the cell. You can also make an exception if you want to lock the entire sheet in the Sheet tab.
There will be a pop up showing you the range of editing permissions you would like to choose. You can restrict anyone except you from editing the cell.
You can also only show a warning when someone edits the range of cells you’ve selected.
You can also choose who can edit that cell. Click Restrict who can edit this range, then select Custom on the selection box.
Here, put their names or email addresses that you allow to edit the range of cells you’ve selected. Your Google account name and email address show on the list as well.
Once a range of cells has been locked, you would see the selected range shows on the Protected sheets and ranges sidebar on Google Sheets, along with its editing permission status. For example, this one can edit but keep showing a warning.
If someone is trying to edit the cell, they would see this message saying “There was a problem. You are trying to edit a protected cell or object. Please contact the spreadsheet owner to remove protection if you need to edit.”
Locking cells in Google Sheets is really useful to protect a part of your spreadsheet that you share for collaboration. When someone tries to edit, they would see the message or contact you so you can make an exception for them to be able to edit that part of your spreadsheet.
RELATED: How to Split Cells in Google Sheets