I have MS Office for Mac 2011. Now that I have upgraded to Sierra (10.12.5), my excel documents are by default "read only." I cannot unlock that restriction. I need these workbooks to be "read and write." Please help.
MacBook Pro with Retina display, Other OS, Sierra 10.12.5
See if any of the following articles can help:
Thank you, I tried the Save As and changed the name, but it didn't change the "Read Only" status. I also tried changing the lock in the Get Info window and changed the permissions but that did not work. Then I spoke with an Apple Tech Rep, who suggested I first try to change any forward slashes in the name of the file and try again. I did and it worked.
God Bless!
Open the document then Save As and change the name. The resulting file should be r/w. Or select one of the documents. Press Command-I to open the Get Info window. In the bottom panel, you will find Sharing & Permissions. Click on the lock icon and enter your admin password when prompted. You can change the permissions as well as add a username. If you don't mind taking a screen snap of the panel, then I can tell you what to try or you may be able to figure that out on your own.
Many thanks Tesserax. I solved the problem before receiving your reply, but the articles you send are interesting and useful none-the-less. Thank you for your help. The problem was: I had absent-mindedly labeled the files with forward slashes which caused Excel to treat the files as "Read Only."
I have this same problem, went through the same solutions however I do not see any slashes in my file name. The answer to the problem was changing any forward slashes in the name of the file and try again. Where does one find the file's name that shows the forward slashes?
When you create an excel file, you need to save it and name it. When I named it, I used forward slashes, i.e. MailingList7/8/17, and then this caused problems. Use MailingList7_8_17 or some other character. This may not be your problem, however. If you are following this thread, you will see other possibly solutions to the problem. If needed, try those.
They should never be used in a Mac filename.
You're very welcome! ... and thanks for posting the solution in case others have the same issue with Excel.
Sierra and Microsoft Office unlock excel files
