The file couldnt open in protected view excel

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.

Table of Contents Show

Microsoft Excel: The File couldn’t open in Protected View
How do I stop The file couldn’t open in Protected View?
How do I force an Excel file to open in Protected Mode?
What Does “This File Couldn’t Open In Protected View” Error Means?
Circumstances Under Which File Couldn’t Open In Protected View Error Generates
What Causes “Can’t Open Files In Protected View”?
How To Fix Excel File Couldn’t Open In Protected View Error?
1# Disable Protected View settings
2# Disable Hardware Graphics Acceleration
3# Unblock The Excel Or Word Document
4# Change The File Block Settings
5#Use Excel Repair Tool

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.

I hope the solutions explained in this post helped you fix the issue.

Read next: How to fix Excel printing problems in Windows 11/10.

Does your Excel file denies to get open in Protected View?

Or are you getting “The file couldn’t open in Protected View” error messages?

Or does the Excel protected feature stopped working?

If you need to fix all these mentioned issues, then check out the potential resolutions mentioned in this post.

What Does “This File Couldn’t Open In Protected View” Error Means?

In Excel Protected View mode users can easily open their Excel files but the editing feature is disabled in it

If your Excel file denies getting opened in protected view then it’s a clear indication that the file must be belonging from some unsafe location.

Or it could be intact with some malware species. So as to protect your PC from any kind of damage, Excel refuses to open that file.

But sometimes, the situation also arises where Protected View won’t open Excel files even though it is coming from a safe source.

Due to which your Excel application starts freezing and you will need to forcefully close the program.

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Select the corrupt Excel file (XLS, XLSX) & click Repair to initiate the repair process.
Preview the repaired files and click Save File to save the files at desired location.

Circumstances Under Which File Couldn’t Open In Protected View Error Generates

Under the following circumstances, you may face this file couldn’t open in protected view error.

At the time of opening Excel documents online or through emails. Excel starts hanging to get opened in protected view.
While trying to open file types which were created in older MS Office version such as Excel 95.

What Causes “Can’t Open Files In Protected View”?

Below here are some root causes of can’t open files in protected view error.

Excel protected view error also occurs when you are using the DisplayLink adapter to execute the external monitor. If you plug-in the DisplayLink adapter excel gets to hang on the opening protected view screen. Whereas, when you unplug the DisplayLink adapter, Excel will show the “Protected View has stopped working” error
This can’t open file in protected view error also arises for those Excel files which belong to Outlook emails.
Excel block feature prevents the older version file types to get opened as normal. This will ultimately restrict the file to get opened in protected view.

How To Fix Excel File Couldn’t Open In Protected View Error?

1# Disable Protected View settings

Open your Excel application.
Hit the File.

Tap to the Options tab. This will open the Excel options settings window.

From the left side navigation pane, choose the Trust-center tab.
Now from the opened window hit the Trust Center Settings.

On the left side of the Trust Center window, you have chosen the Protected View.
After that unselect all the previously selected option present within the protected view.

Hit the Ok button to close the window.

2# Disable Hardware Graphics Acceleration

To fix this file can’t be open in protected view error that arises due to DisplayLink Drivers. For this, you need to disable the hardware graphics acceleration. Here is how it is to be done.

Open your Excel application.
Hit the File.

From the Excel options window, hit the Advanced.

Within the Display section, make a check across ‘Disable hardware graphics acceleration‘ option.

Tap the OK button.
Now try to open your Excel documents with the email again.

3# Unblock The Excel Or Word Document

If you are a Windows 1o user then on your taskbar, hit the File Explorer
Now open that folder in which the “Protected View“error showing the Excel file contains.
Make a right-click on the Excel document and then choose the Properties.
Tap to the Unblock
Hit the apply
Press OK to take the exit.

4# Change The File Block Settings

For changing the File Block settings you need to enable the old Excel file types to get opened as normal. Here are the steps which you need to follow to perform this:

Open Excel application. Now from the menu ribbon hit the File tab.

From the opened File tab left–hand navigation pane you have to make a click on Options.

Once the window of Excel Options gets opens, from the left side navigation pane tap the Trust Center.

After that make a tap on the Trust Center Settings.

This will open the Trust Center.
From the left-hand navigation, the pane makes a tap on the Protected View to check out the Protected View options.

Important:

Be careful, because the Protected View potentially prevents your application and PC from being havoc by dangerous files. By disabling this Protected View feature, you are indirectly inviting PC security threats.

In order to disable the Protected View, you need to prevent the file from getting opened in the Protected Mode. For this just unselect all the following mentioned options.
1. Enable Protected View for files originating from the internet,
2. Enable Protected View for files located in potentially unsafe locations,
3. Enable Protected View for Outlook attachments.
Again from the left-side side navigation pane, tap the File Block Settings.
In the opened window of File Block Settings.
Uncheck all the following checkboxes. This will prevent Excel from blocking those file types.
1. Excel 95 Workbooks,
2. Excel 4 Workbooks,
3. Excel 4 Worksheets,
4. Excel 3 Worksheets,
5. Excel 2 Worksheets,
6. Excel 4 Macrosheets and Add-in Files,
7. Excel 3 Macrosheets and Add-in Files,
8. Excel 2 Macrosheets and Add-in Files.
Tap the OK button.

Now the entire older versions Excel file will easily get open. Along with that you can edit and save it just like a normal Excel file version.

5#Use Excel Repair Tool

After getting the Excel Protected View has stopped working error users usually encounters with ‘The file is corrupt and cannot be opened’ error.

So if you are also dealing with the same corruption error in your Excel program then use the Excel repair tool. As it is extremely useful to repair corrupted/ damaged Excel files.

* Free version of the product only previews recoverable data.

As this software offers batch file processing so you can easily recover all lost workbook stuff like charts, tables, cell comments, images, chart sheets, sorts, formulas, filters.

This software is fully compatible with all Excel versions: 2019, 2016, 2013, 2010, 2007, 2003 & 2000.

Wrap Up:

So these are some most effective resolutions using which you can easily get rid of file can’t be opened in protected view error.

In most cases, disabling the protected view has successfully fixed this issue. But if you want to keep the protected view enable then you can try the other fixes.