When you share a collaborative Google Sheet with your team, you often want them to fill out specific columns while leaving your complex formulas, headers, and reference data completely untouched. If a coworker accidentally deletes a VLOOKUP formula, it can break the entire document. To prevent this, Google Sheets allows you to lock specific cells or entire sheets so that only you (or specific people) can edit them.
How to Lock a Range of Cells
You can apply protection to just a few specific cells while leaving the rest of the spreadsheet open for anyone to type in.
- Open your spreadsheet in Google Sheets.
- Highlight the exact cells or columns you want to lock.
- Right-click the highlighted area, scroll down to View more cell actions, and select Protect range.
- A sidebar will appear on the right. Give your protected range a brief description (like “Do Not Touch Formulas”).
- Click the green Set permissions button.
- In the new popup window, look under the “Restrict who can edit this range” section.
- Change the dropdown menu to Only you.
- Click Done.
Your selected cells are now locked. If anyone else tries to click on them and press a key, Google Sheets will physically block them from making the edit and display a warning message, ensuring your critical data remains perfectly intact.