By Mehedi Hasan Shoab

If you’re like millions of other users, you use Excel spreadsheets to plan your budgets, track sales or expenses, and organize all sorts of data. You may even use Excel to work with private or confidential information.

If you have data in a spreadsheet that you don’t want just anyone else to see, you can password protect that Excel file. I’ve found that requiring people to enter a password to access an Excel file keeps your private information private — while still allowing you, and anyone else with the password, proper access.

Let’s go through how you can password protect your Excel files.

How to Password Protect an Excel File

In my decade-long use of Excel, I’ve used spreadsheets to house all sorts of personal and business information.

If I don’t want to share that information with others, all I have to do is password protect the document — and then only share the password with those who need access.

For example, I’ve worked at many businesses that use Excel to store confidential employee information — social security numbers, salaries, and the like.

You don’t want random employees to access this private info, so the best approach is for the human resources (HR) department to password protect that particular file.

HR can then share that password with key management, who need to see the data but use password protection to keep the data away from other employees’ prying eyes.

Here’s how to do it:

Password Protect on Windows

Step 1: Open Document

From within Excel, open an existing spreadsheet or create a new one.

Step 2: Click File

From within the spreadsheet, click File on the menu bar.

Step 3: Click Info

On the next page, click Info in the left column.

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Step 4: Add Protection

Click the Protect Workbook button to display the drop-down menu.

Step 5: Encrypt Document

Select Encrypt with Password. This displays the Encrypt Document dialog box.

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Step 6: Create Password

Enter the desired password into the Password field, then click OK. The longer and more complex the password, the better. Try not to enter common words or phrases that others could easily guess.

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Step 7: Confirm Password

Excel now prompts you to confirm the password. Re-enter the password into the Reenter Password field and click OK again.

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Password Protect on Mac

Step 1: Open Document

From within Excel, open an existing spreadsheet or create a new one.

Step 2: Click File

From within the spreadsheet, click File on the top menu bar.

Step 3: Click Passwords

Next, click Passwords… in the dropdown menu.

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Source:: HubSpot Blog

Author: Aaron