Excel File Reservation Read Only Problem

Did you open as read only and then save it under a different name?

Also try to save it as a earlier excel format.

Yardley said:

No, I'll have to try that. If that works what then? Is there something I can do to fix all of the files with this problem or would I have to save each one with a new name? Thanks

Click to expand...

Each file unless you do the following;

By any chance did you us "command I' (for Info)on the folder that holds the file(s) and insure you have read/write priviledges? And then did you click the drop down file under the little 'wheel' at the bottom and choose "Apply To Enclosed Items'? Then click Apply.

BTW You can only execute the commands when you have 'Administrator Rights'.
Otherwise they won't take.

@Yardley
I found that using a / in the file name results in the file being saved as read-only. I saved a file titled A/C Filters.xlxs which saved as read-only. This issue lead me to this forum. After I removed the / from A/C Filters (AC Filters.xlxs) the file saved as a working workbook.

I noticed from your screen shot that you included a / in your file name. Try omitting the /.

You are exactly right! the "/" sign is the culprit

Thank you so much for that posting - I had the exact same problem as the original poster, and copying or saving as new name, etc. wasn't working. It is the "/" in my title, and as soon as I took that away, it opens up perfectly normal. I'd be curious to know why this glitch occurs?

But Thanks for solving an annoyance. I just wouldn't have ever thought it was in my name, and was looking all around for permissions and multiple users, etc. So Simple....

Wow, wish I had know this for the past 2 years! What a simple solution; and I might add that dashes in the title of a doc also creates the same 'read-only' problem. Thanks for posting.

solution not correct

I think this solution must be an accident.
I've had this problem with a few files which now cannot be accessed from another machine because it thinks someone else is currently modifying it. I've removed all non alphabet characters (/ - _ ) and the problem remains. 10.6.8 machine trying to access a .xls file stored on a 10.8.2 iMac.
I've checked permissions are ok.
Only workround is to save as a new file on the client machine, but as it's a file a number of us work on it's not a viable solution.

Excel File Reservation Read Only Problem

If you open Terminal and go to the folder where the file is located, enter "ls -la" and you'll see that there is a file with the same filename preceded by a tilda and dollar sign"~$". Delete that file and your problem is solved.

Use the following: rm "~\$filename" to delete the file.

Brilliant!! I looked everywhere for the solution to this and this is the only definitive cure I've found. Some have had success with renaming files to eliminate slashes, but my files have simple names to begin with.

Background: After Migration Assistant moved all my files onto my shiny new Macbook Pro, I got the read-only warning dialog when trying to open most (but not all) of my Excel 2011 .xlsx files.

In Finder's Get Info panel, I tried everything but I was already listed as having Read-Write access. Changing the extension from .xlsx to .xls allowed the file to open normally and was a quick, imperfect fix. Strange, but that isolated the problem to Excel itself. Trashing Excel preferences .plist did not make a difference.

In Excel, there was no indication that a password or read-only restriction had been applied or could be changed. The exception was at Fileroperties:General, where the Read-only box was ticked but greyed out so it could not be changed.

I was flummoxed until I found the post above. Using Terminal to list and then delete the "~" files solved the problem completely. I suppose making hidden files visible would allow the bogus files to be trashed from the Finder, but I haven't tried that.

I just discovered another very easy fix that doesn't require Terminal:

1. Move the files you want to keep, including the Excel files you cannot open, into a new folder.

2. This leaves the "~" files behind and thereby allows the spreadsheet to open normally in their new location. Check to confirm that your Excel files now open normally.

3. Delete the old, apparently empty folder containing the hidden "~" files.

Excel File Reservation Read Only Problem

Thanks for the solution to find and remove the files with ~ in front. I have faced this problem for a while, but never looked it up on the net.

Shirley Gasch

1foolish1 said:

@Yardley
I found that using a / in the file name results in the file being saved as read-only.

Click to expand...

Thanks! This solved the same issue I had with Excel 2008.