Excel: The File couldn’t open in Protected View

If you see the “The file couldn’t open in protected view” error while opening Microsoft Excel, the solutions listed in this post may help you resolve the issue. While the majority of users experienced this error in Microsoft Excel, you may see this error in Microsoft Word too.

Microsoft Excel: The File couldn’t open in Protected View

If Microsoft Excel shows the “The file couldn’t open in protected view” error when you open your file, try the solutions described below:

Change the name of the file
Update Office
Unblock the file
Change the Trust Center settings
Check if the Dynamic Data Exchange option is enabled
Repair Office
Uninstall and reinstall Office

Let’s see all these fixes in detail.

1] Change the name of the file

Before you try any troubleshooting method, change the name of your file and then see if you get the same error message. This trick has worked for many users. Hence, it should also work for you. If this does not work, try the next potential fix.

2] Update Office

You can manually check for Office updates. Updating Microsoft Office can fix many bugs and issues. The following steps will help you check updates for Microsoft Office:

Open any Microsoft Office application, Word, PowerPoint, Excel, etc.
Go to “File > Account.”
You will see the Office Updates section.
Click “Update Options > Update Now.”

3] Unblock the file

If the issue persists, Unblock the file you are experiencing the issue with. To unblock the file, follow the steps below:

Right-click on your Excel file.
Select Properties. Or press the Alt + Enter keys to open the file properties.
Under the General tab, check the Unblock checkbox.
Click Apply and then click OK.

This should fix the issue.

3] Change the Trust Center settings

The error message says that Microsoft Excel cannot open the selected file in Protected View. Therefore, if you disable the Protected View in Trust Center settings, the error may get fixed. Go through the following steps to disable the Protected View mode in Microsoft Excel.

Open Microsoft Excel.
Go to “File > Options > Trust Center.”
Now, click on the Trust Center Settings button.
Select Protected View from the left side.
Uncheck all the options on the right side.
Click OK to save the changes.
Click OK again to close the Excel Options window.

5] Check if the Dynamic Data Exchange option is enabled

By default, the DDE mode remains disabled in Excel. But if it is enabled, you may experience issues with excel, like problems launching Excel or Excel files. Check if this mode is enabled or not. If yes, disable it. The following instructions will guide you on this:

Open Excel.
Go to “File > options > Advanced.”
Scroll down to locate the General section.
If the Ignore other applications that use Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) checkbox is selected, deselect it and click OK.

6] Repair Office

If the problem persists, some of your Office files might have been corrupted. In this case, repairing Microsoft Office can resolve the issue. First, try Quick Repair. If this does not work, run an Online Repair. This should fix the problem.

7] Uninstall and reinstall Office

If none of the above solutions worked, uninstall and reinstall Microsoft Office. Before you uninstall Office, make sure that you have the product key. The product key will be used to reactivate Microsoft Office.

Read: Save button grayed out in Word, Excel, PowerPoint.

How do I stop The file couldn’t open in Protected View?

The error message says that the particular file cannot be opened in the Protected View. Therefore, the effective solution to resolve this error is to disable the protected View. Apart from that, you can also try changing the name of your file, as this trick has helped many users. We have explained the ways to fix this error in Excel in detail in this article.

How do I force an Excel file to open in Protected Mode?

You can open every Excel file in Protected Mode. For this, first, enable the Protected View in Excel Options. After that, configure the File Block Settings. The following steps will help you with that:

Open Microsoft Excel.
Go to “File > Options > Trust Center.”
Now, open the Trust Center Settings.
Select Protected View from the left side and then enable all the three options on the right side.
Now, select File Block Settings from the left side.
On the right side, select the Open checkboxes for the file types that you want to open in the Protected View.
Now, select the Open selected file types in Protected View radio button at the bottom.
Click OK to save the changes.
Click OK again to close the Excel Options window.