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Excel has locked me out of my protected sheet when I am certain I am using the correct password.

LZ 0 Reputation points
2025-12-12T03:00:52.8633333+00:00

I have an excel spreadsheet in which one of the sheets I have protected with a password. Recently I tried to access the protected sheet but it now says the password is wrong - which I know it is is not as I have accessed the sheet in the past. So i then copied the sheet and pasted into a new workbook and was then able to access it. I then tested it again. I protected it with a password, was able to access it a few times but again today when I tried to access it, again it tells me that the password is wrong. This is has happened in the past with other spreadsheets. It is EXTREMELY frustrating that it continues to do this. Surely I am not the only person that this is happening to?

Microsoft 365 and Office | Excel | For business | Windows
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  1. Darren-Ng 5,800 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator
    2025-12-12T04:23:32.5133333+00:00

    Dear @LZ,

    Thank you for posting your question in the Microsoft Q&A forum.

    Based on your description, Excel shows “password incorrect” when trying to unprotect a sheet, even though the correct password was used before.

    Several users have confirmed that Excel sometimes fails to recognize the correct password even though it worked previously. This can occur after saving, closing, or syncing files via OneDrive or Teams. Opening files on different devices or in Excel Online can sometimes trigger this behavior

    Try to check Caps Lock and case sensitivity (passwords are case-sensitive).

    Here are some workarounds you can try:

    1. Copy Sheet to New Workbook As you discovered, copying the sheet into a new workbook often removes the protection glitch.
    2. Check Auto-Save Settings Disable Auto-Save and retry. Some users regained access after turning it off.
    3. Upload to OneDrive and Open in Excel Online Sometimes unprotecting via Excel Online works when the desktop app fails.
    4. Restore Previous Version Use File > Info > Manage Workbook > Recover Unsaved Workbooks or OneDrive version history to revert to a version before the issue occurred.

    Also, you can report and raise feedback this issue to Microsoft technical support for deeper investigation, their back-end team can initiate a remote session, collect advanced logs, and analyze the root cause.

    As forum moderators, we have limited permissions and cannot access certain logs due to privacy constraints

    If you are using excel desktop app, you can follow as screenshot below: Click to icon feedback on left corner above then choose Report a problem, describe your issue in there.

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    I hope information above helpful, if you have any other questions, please feel free to reach out.

    If the answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment".

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