How to stop or turn off Workbook Sharing in Excel

Once the final version of your Excel workbook or Microsoft 365’s version of Excel Workbook is complete you might want to stop or turn off the workbook sharing in Excel to avert any unwanted changes. However, before stopping the sharing of a workbook, ensure all the final changes or additions have been accommodated because any unsaved changes will be lost. The Change history will also be deleted, alongside. Here’s how to go about it.

How do you turn off workbook sharing in Excel

First, copy the change history information. For this, click ‘Track changes’ option visible under the Changes Group of Review tab.

Next, hit the Highlight Changes button. In the When list, select All and clear the Who and Where checkboxes.

Now, select the List changes on a new sheet check box, and then click OK. Now, do the following

Copy the history to another workbook. Select the cells that you would want to copy, switch to another workbook, and place the copied data. Thereafter, in the shared workbook, go to the Review tab, and under the Changes group, click Share Workbook.

Clear the ‘Allow changes by more than one user at the same time’ option. This also allows the workbook merging check box. For some reason, if you find the checkbox is not visible, unprotect the workbook. Now, to remove shared workbook protection, do the following:

Click OK to close the Share Workbook dialog box.

Switch to the Review tab, in the Changes group, click Unprotect Shared Workbook.

When prompted for the password, enter the password and hit the OK button.

Then, on the Review tab, in the Changes group, click Share Workbook.

Thereafter, In the Editing tab, clear the Allow changes by more than one user at the same time. This also allows the workbook merging check box. When your permission for making changes about the effects on other users is sought, click Yes.

Why can’t I unshare my Excel workbook?

Although the Unshare Workbook option should be visible in the Review tab in Excel, there could be times when it might be grayed out. It happens when you share a Workbook via the co-authoring option. In that case, you need to remove the access manually from OneDrive. You can use the online version of OneDrive or the desktop app to do the same thing.

How do I stop others from editing my Excel Workbook?

In order to stop or prevent others from editing your Excel Workbook, you need to use the Unshare Workbook option. You can find this option in the Review tab after opening the Excel app. Alternatively, you can also do the same thing using the Remove access option, which is available only when you open the OneDrive app on your desktop.

That’s it! Hope it helped.