How to configure password for Excel file to prevent unauthorized file modification
Sometimes your Excel file carry important data which you want no one to modify or only authorized persons to modify.
You can configure password to protect your Excel file from unauthorized file modifications.
Follow these steps to configure password for unauthorized Excel file edit and modification.
Step 1 - Open "Save As" dialog box from "Save As" menu in Excel Backstage View, as shown below.
Step 2 - Click down arrow on "Tools" Split button and click "General Options" from menu, as shown in below image.
Step 3 - Enter password to modify Excel file and click "OK", as shown in below image.
Step 4 - Confirm password to modify Excel file and click "OK" as shown in below image.
Tip
• The maximum number of characters that can be used in password is 255 (in Excel 2019).• The password is case-sensitive. Means that "password" and "Password" are different.
• Never use common words used in our daily life as password. Hackers can easily crack your password by a dictionary attack.
• Never use a password that is impossible to remember.
Step 4 - Click "Save" button to finish saving the configured password to prevent unauthorized Excel file modification, as shown in below image.
Step 5 - Note that in this example the file name we used to save is same as the existing file we opened to configure the password. This action will result in replacing the original Excel file with a password protected file.
Click "Yes" to confirm file replace.
Next time, when you try to open the Excel file, Excel program will prompt you to enter the password to modify the file, or you can select to open the file as Read-only, as shown in below example.
