Les feuilles de calcul ont tendance à contenir des informations sensibles. Bien que votre fichier Google Sheet puisse être utilisé pour la planification, il est plus probable qu’il soit utilisé pour des réunions budgétaires, des états de revenus/dépenses et des heures de travail des employés. Lorsqu’une feuille de calcul est utilisée pour quelque chose de confidentiel – quelque chose qui contient des informations personnelles, financières ou de propriété intellectuelle – elle doit être sécurisée et protégée.
Lorsqu’il s’agit de la plupart des documents, la meilleure façon de le faire est de les protéger par mot de passe. Mais il est un peu difficile de protéger par mot de passe les fichiers Google Sheets, qui ne permettent pas la protection par mot de passe interne.
Alors, pouvez-vous protéger par mot de passe vos fichiers Google Sheets ? La réponse courte est oui, mais c’est un peu compliqué.
Jetons un coup d’œil à la façon de protéger par mot de passe une feuille Google – et à ce que vous pouvez faire d’autre pour sécuriser vos données.
Why Would You Need to Password Protect a Google Sheet?
Google Sheets is a cloud-based application. Everything is stored online. When you go to edit your document, you have permission to view it. If you’re the only one with that permission, this might not be a big deal.
But often, spreadsheets are shared with other people. You can share it via a link and allow anyone with the link to view the document, but that can be a bit risky without Google Sheets encryption.
This is the power of the cloud, making the cloud hyper-accessible. The problem is that if you share a Google link with anyone, then anyone can get it. If someone logs in to a device that contains your cloud information, they will already have access to your Google Sheets files.
Password protection, at the very least, ensures that people without the password will not be able to access it – even if they found the link.
The problem is that Google doesn’t actually offer password protection or encryption features. You have to go a little further to make sure your documents are secure.
How to Password Protect Google Sheets with Password
Unfortunately, there is no native way to password protect your sheets. But there is a workaround that you can use by installing a script from the Skipser.com website. You can follow their guide by following this link to the article on password protection. The first time you password protect your sheets, you will need to follow these instructions:
- Open a copy of the protected sheet on the Skipser website.
- Go to Tools > Script Editor.
- In the appearing window, select File > Manage versions and click on Save new version.
- Leave all fields blank and click OK.
- Go to Publish > Deploy as web app and click on the Deploy button.
- Close this window, and you’ll find a new menu item Protect File.
- Select Protect File > Initialize and provide the password and permissions.
How to Encrypt Google Sheets (How to Set a Password for Google Sheets)
Once you have set up the encryption file with the above steps, you can encrypt your data with the following steps, just make sure not to modify the first two rows of the sheet.
- Go to Protect File > Encrypt File.
- Enter a password.
This will scramble the data in each cell.
How to Remove the Password Protection Settings from Google Sheet by Decrypting the Data
When you open a sheet running the password protection script, you just need to follow the same steps you used to encrypt the file in the first place:
- Go to Protect File > Encrypt File.
- Enter a password.
This will decrypt the data in each cell.
How to Access Encrypted Files on Your Phone
You can’t encrypt files on your phone, but you can open them. You just need to:
- Click on the encrypted URL at the top of the sheet.
- Enter the password.
Other Options to Password Protect Google Sheets
You can choose not to share a document (which still means it is accessible from your personal cloud). You can choose to share a document only with a link (and hope the wrong person doesn’t get hold of the link). Or, more securely, you can share a document with specific individuals – but again, this can be risky as anyone from their account will be able to view the document as well.
How to Lock a Google Sheet with a Password Using Plugins
Unfortunately, there simply is no way to password protect Google Sheets internally. This is also true for other Google programs, such as Google Docs.
What you can do is install a plugin. There are plugins such as Password Protect for Google Documents. The downside is that not only does this require a lot of work for password protection, but it also means that you have to trust a third-party agent. Learning how to put a password on Google Sheets varies from application to application. To install one, you just have to search in the Google Workspace Marketplace.
How to Set a Soft Warning for Cell Editing in Google Sheets
If you don’t need to protect the entire sheet from prying eyes and only need to prevent others from modifying the sheet, you can simply set a warning. Just follow these steps:
- Go to Data > Protect sheets and ranges.
- Select permissions by adding email addresses of people allowed to edit.
- Check the “Show a warning when editing this range” box and click Done.
You can also protect ranges instead of entire sheets by specifying the range in the “Protected sheets and ranges” menu option.
How to Remove Protected Ranges
To remove protection from ranges, simply:
- Go to Data > Protect sheets and ranges.
- Click on the protected range or sheet.
- Click on the “Trash” icon.
Protecting a Google Sheet with Password as an Excel Sheet
One of the simplest and easiest ways to password protect a Google sheet is by converting it to an Excel workbook. Excel has a simple built-in encryption protocol, and it’s very easy to export Google sheets to Excel.
First, download your Google sheet as an XLSX document.
Then, open it in Microsoft Excel. Check that all data has been successfully transferred.
From there, simply go to File -> Info -> Protect Workbook -> Encrypt with Password.
You will need to verify that the password is the one you want.
Now, you have a file that contains all the data from your Google Sheets file plus a password that protects it.
As long as you never share your original Google Sheets document, it should be relatively well protected – at least as well protected as your account. The file you share should always be the Excel file, which will remain password protected and controlled.
Remember your password. Because password-protected data is protected by one-way encryption, there will be no way to recover or reset your password if you forget it.
Hiding a Single Page in a Google Sheet
If you’re trying to hide data from others, you can always right-click on a sheet and select “Hide.” Then, you’ll need to make sure that when you share the sheet, others can only “view” and “comment” on the sheet, without being able to edit it. They won’t be able to view the page you have hidden, so they won’t be able to see that data.
But note that this isn’t always the best solution, primarily because the data is still in the file – if someone really wants to retrieve it, it’s possible they can. Plus, you’ll need to view the hidden data to edit it, and that will make it visible to anyone viewing the file.
You’ll also see the option “Protect Sheet.” This allows you to set permissions, but it’s not a privacy issue, it’s a control issue; you can prevent people from editing your document, not from viewing it.
Printing Google Sheets
While it may seem low-tech, if you’re in the same office as the person you’re sharing reports with, one of the fastest and easiest ways to secure data is actually to print a paper copy.
Paper copies have several advantages. They cannot be hijacked by someone from your account or the recipient’s account. Once they are destroyed, they are. And they don’t need password protection because they can only be viewed by one person at a time.
Given that most solutions are technical, this solution is often overlooked. But consider the benefits of printing and distributing copies of confidential information, as well as destroying those copies when finished.
Other Ways to Share a Google Sheet
You can still protect a Google sheet without Google Sheets password protection – it just isn’t as secure.
- Keep it hidden. You can keep it unshared (locked icon) for everyone. Only you can access this sheet… as long as no one else accesses your cloud account. It’s not perfect because someone can still access your cloud account, but it’s close to perfection.
- Share it only with specific people. Share your document with specific individuals by sending them an invitation through their Google account. But make sure they understand the document is intended for their eyes only and restrict permissions if needed.
- Share it in a limited way. If you share a link, you can share it in view or comment mode, so users can only comment or read.
Conclusion
So there are secure ways to share a Google sheet. The problem is that there is no internal password protection or encryption in Google Sheets – so you’ll have to do some work yourself.
It is recommended to password protect Google Sheets files as soon as they contain sensitive or personally identifiable information. If the information is not meant to be broadcasted on the web, it should be protected with a password. Unlike Microsoft Excel, everything on a Google sheet is, by default, visible on the web. If you start sharing your document, there could be unintended consequences.
You can use any of the methods above to password protect Google Sheet files, but since Google Sheets doesn’t have internal password protection, the easiest way to protect a file is to convert it to an Excel file. By converting it to an Excel file before sharing, you can preserve the security of the document while still enjoying the main features and benefits of Google Sheets when creating the file.
You might also like to learn how to hide columns from specific users in Google Sheets.
To learn more about Google Sheets, visit Crawlan.com.
