how do i open a locked document

Question

A bunch of my documents are suddenly not opening for me. I Get Info on them and unlock the lock at the lower right hand corner, but the docs still don't open. How do I open them?

Answer 1

Before you attempt to troubleshoot anything it would be a good idea to apply updates to both macOS & Office. Both are significantly out of date. Ventura now should be at 13.7.3 & version 16.93 is current for Mac Office.

Updating may not resolve your issue but attempting to troubleshoot outdated product usually is fruitless.

Answer 2

Will they open if you move them to your Mac OS Documents folder?

Did you recently add a cloud storage app to your Mac?

Answer 3

Dear Kyfaa,

Thanks for posting back and sorry for the late reply that I've been off duty previously.

As Bob as suggested, we'd recommend you update macOS and Office version if available on your Mac.

In the meantime, please refer to suggestions shared in the similar thread to check the outcome.

For your reference: why do I get "User does not have access privileges" message - Microsoft Community

Regards,

Rhoda

Answer 4

Rhonda, thanks for getting back to me.

Answers to your questions:

1. Screenshot attached. It always just says "Word cannot open the document:  user does not have access privileges"

2. Saved on a Mac.

3. All files were created by me.

4. Files are not protected or password protected.

5. macOS Ventura 13.4

Word 16.16.8 (190312)

License: Office 365 Subscription

Answer 5

Dear Kyfaa,

Good day! Thank you for posting to Microsoft Community. We are happy to help you.

We understand that you're facing an issue with documents being unexpectedly locked and not opening in Word for Mac. We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused and appreciate your patience.

To help you better, we would like to collect more detailed information you're experiencing for further investigation:

1. Are you seeing any error prompts when trying to open these documents? If possible, please share screenshots of the issue you're encountering.
2. Are the files saved on your Mac or in a cloud service such as OneDrive or SharePoint?
3. Were the files created by you or shared by other users?
4. Are the files protected or password-protected?
5. Additionally, please share your macOS and Office version with us. For the Office version, you can navigate to Word > About Word and take a screenshot as shown below:

In the meantime, if the files are located in cloud service such as OneDrive or SharePoint, please check if same issue occurs when using the Office web app in a browser. Also, check for any error prompts when trying to access the cloud location.

We appreciate your kind patience and understanding that sometime the initial reply may not resolve the concern immediately or there may have some misunderstanding about your scenario, we would like to hear the updates from your side and figure out further suggestions. 

Thank you for your time and cooperation. We hope you have a nice day and stay safe!

Sincerely，

Rhoda | Microsoft Community Moderator