Excel file locked for editing...by myself

Question

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I was working on an Excel file stored in Onedrive, using the Excel 2013 application (not the web application).  My system locked up (unrelated to Excel or Onedrive) and I had to hard power cycle the PC to recover.  Anyway, now upon opening the file in Excel it tells me the file is locked for editing by another user and the user is....me!  How can I force the file handle lock to be removed so that I can get back to editing with Excel?  I am not using the Onedrive application on my PC, I am interacting with the file directly via the Onedrive integration to Office 2013.

Answer 1

Hi! We've put together an article on Excel file lock behavior that we hope may be helpful.

Excel file is locked out for editing to another user

It's also always a great idea to check for updates and make sure you have the latest release.

Freya

Office Newsroom

Answer 2

I don't seem able to use my Excel the way I used to -- graphs and charts I save are locked for editing; I can't even copy and paste any graphs. I hope this doesn't have anything to do with my NOT upgrading from Windows 8 -- which would disrupt a lot of my file keeping, and have postponed.

Answer 3

I've been having this issue on one of my Windows networks and finally took the time to figure it out. In my case, it wasn't nearly as complicated as some related threads might indicate. It's just a temporary file that needs to be deleted.

1. Excel (and probably any MS Office application) creates a temporary file in the same folder as the document when someone opens it on the network. The name of the temporary file is the same as the document with a tilde ( ~ ) in front of it. It is a hidden file as well as a “protected operating system" file, so it will not normally be displayed in the folder contents unless the View tab in Folder Options has been modified.
2. The temporary file should disappear when the document gets closed. Evidently there are circumstances under which the temporary file is left behind, resulting in an erroneous “File locked for editing by <user name>”.  There are Office patches which claim to resolve this issue at the workstation level, but deleting the temporary file is the most efficient workaround.
3. The name displayed in <user name> is from the “Personalize your copy of Microsoft Office” (File/Options/General). This might indicate a user whose computer is not up-to-date with patches.

Solved my problem, thank you!

Answer 4

After an update of Microsoft Office, my Excel and Access files are now locked with a message "view only"  It gives me options to buy Office 365, which I do not want to do.  How do I get my files open so I can use them.  Any new file I create is also locked.

Answer 5

hello.

nothing worked for me...

what helped was the following.

close excel

go to

C:\Users%user%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Excel

rename Excel14.xlb to Excel14.old

start excel and access the file - worked as charm.

tested on win 7 64 bit, excel 2010

My excel has started behaving itself again. All spreadsheets have been moved back to their appropriate folders.

I will definitely keep your solution in mind though for any future recurrence.