Lock Cells in Excel (Shortcut)

By default, the cells in Excel are not locked. This means that anyone who opens the Excel file can edit the cells in the worksheet.

But sometimes, you may want to lock some or all of the cells in Excel so other people can’t change them.

A common scenario where you may want to lock cells in Excel selectively is when you create a dashboard or a report and share it with other people, and you do not want them to change the cells that have the formulas.

In this tutorial, I will give you the shortcuts to lock cells in Excel.

Shortcut to Lock Cells in Excel

There is no single shortcut you can use to lock cells in Excel.

However, you can use two shortcuts to open the relevant sections where you can make the changes and lock the cells (as this is a multi-step process)

Below is the shortcut to lock cells in Excel:

Control + 1

and 

ALT + R + P + S

How to Use the Keyboard Shortcut to Lock Cells

There are two ways you can use the above keyboard shortcuts.

You can either lock all the cells in a worksheet, or you can lock some of the cells while keeping a selected range of cells that are unlocked and can be edited.

Steps to Lock Some Cells and Keep Some Cells Unlocked

Below are the steps to use the above keyboard shortcuts to lock cells in Excel:

  1. Select the cells that you want to keep unlocked (i.e., select the cells that you don’t want to lock).
select the cells that you want to keep unlocked
  1. Use the keyboard shortcut Control + 1 (hold the Control key and press the 1 key). This will open the Format Cells dialog box.
  2. Select the ‘Protection’ tab and uncheck the Locked option
Uncheck the Locked option
  1. Close the Format Cells dialog box
  2. Use the shortcut ALT + R + P + S. This will open the Protect Sheet dialog box
protect sheet dialog box
  1. [Optional] Enter a password that would be needed to unlock the cells
  2. Click OK

The above steps would lock all the cells in the worksheet except the one that you selected in step 1.

Steps to Lock All Cells in the Worksheet

Below are the steps to use keyboard shortcuts to lock all the cells in the worksheet:

  1. Use the shortcut ALT + R + P + S. This will open the Protect Sheet dialog box
  2. [Optional] Enter a password that would be needed to unlock the cells
  3. Click OK

Important Things to Know About Locking Cells in Excel

  • By default, all the cells in Excel are locked. this is why as soon as you protect the entire worksheet, all the cells are locked and cannot be edited by the users. so if you want some sales to be unlocked while others to be logged, you need to 1st select the cells that you want to be unlocked and then uncheck the log property from the format cells dialog box (as we did in step 1 of the “Steps to Lock Some Cells and Keep Some Cells Unlocked” section)
  • When you lock cells in Excel, the only thing you can do is select the cell. Everything else is disabled/locked. If you would like to make more changes, such as inserting a row in the protected cells or sorting the dataset where the cells are protected, you can make these changes in the protect sheet dialog box (as shown below)
select the options that you want to enable for locked cells

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I am a huge fan of Microsoft Excel and love sharing my knowledge through articles and tutorials. I work as a business analyst and use Microsoft Excel extensively in my daily tasks. My aim is to help you unleash the full potential of Excel and become a data-slaying wizard yourself.

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