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How to Disable Protected View in Microsoft Office While Opening Email Attachments or Downloaded Files?

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If you are using Microsoft Office 2013 or Office 2010 versions, you might have noticed this problem. Whenever you try to open an Office document (Word, Excel or PowerPoint file) which was downloaded from Internet or was attached in an email, Microsoft Office program opens it in Protected View which is also known as Read Mode or Restricted Mode.

In this mode, the file is opened as read-only. You can’t edit the file until you click on “Enable Editing” button as shown in following image:

Microsoft_Office_2013_Protected_View.png

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In Protected View you also get a message bar at the top of the window containing messages similar to following:

  • This file originated from an Internet location and might be unsafe
  • This file originated as an e-mail attachment and might be unsafe
  • This file was opened from a potentially unsafe location
  • Editing this file type is not allowed due to your policy settings
  • Editing this file type is not recommended due to your File Block settings in the Trust Center
  • Office has detected a problem with this file. Editing it may harm your computer

Protected View mode was introduced in Office 2010 version which is present in the latest Office 2013 version as well. It was designed to provide better security as the files downloaded from Internet or attached in emails might contain viruses and can be dangerous for your computer system. Protected View protects your computer from being infected by these suspicious items automatically.

But if you are sure about the file and if you know that the downloaded file is absolutely safe, then this Protected View might become annoying for you. Every time you try to open such a file in an Office program, you’ll need to click on the enable editing button each time to edit the file.

Don’t worry! Here is the solution. Microsoft Office comes with an option to disable this built-in Protected View feature in any desired Office program.

If you also want to turn off Protected View feature in Office 2010 or Office 2013 version, check out following simple steps:

1. First launch any Office program such as Microsoft Word and then click on File menu present in the ribbon.

2. Now click on Options tab present in the left sidebar.

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3. It’ll open Options window. Now click on “Trust Center” tab given at the end in left-side pane and then click on “Trust Center Settings” button.

Microsoft_Office_Trust_Center_Settings.png

It’ll open a new window to customize Trust Center settings.

4. Click on “Protected View” tab and in right-side pane, you’ll see following options:

  • Enable Protected View for files originating from the Internet
  • Enable Protected View for files that are located in potentially unsafe locations
  • Enable Protected View for Outlook attachments

Disable_Protected_View_Microsoft_Office_2013.png

5. All options are enabled by default. Disable the desired option or disable all given options to turn off Protected View completely and click on OK button to save the changes.

6. Close the Office program and now whenever you open a file downloaded from Internet or attached in an email, it’ll open normally instead of Protected View.

PS: If the above method doesn’t work for you, click on “File Block Settings” tab in Trust Center Settings window and then click on “Restore Defaults” button.

Restore_Default_File_Block_Settings_Microsoft_Office_2013.png

NOTE: You’ll need to follow the same procedure for each Office program such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint separately.

NOTE For Network Drives:

You need to enable the checkbox “Allow Trusted Locations on my network (not recommended)”. It’s present under the list of locations that you added. Once you enable the option, it’ll allow you to open documents from a network share. You can then enter either the drive letter or the UNC and it should work without any problem.

Thanks to our reader “Joe” for the network drives tip…

NOTE 2:

If it still doesn’t work for you, try following extra step mentioned by our reader “Scott”:

Again open Trust Center Settings and select TRUSTED LOCATIONS in the left hand listings. (Be sure box at bottom is checked for “Allow Trusted Locations on my Network”). Now click the “Add New Locations” button. Now you click BROWSE, and navigate to your network drive or your primary folder with all your older documents. (Only drill down as far as you want to go to include all of your documents you wish to have open normally in Office programs). For instance, if on your computer all WORD docs are under MY DOCUMENTS and you also have more docs under MY PICTURES, then browse to each of those two folders and add them both to TRUSTED LOCATIONS, Now all documents open up normally.

Published in: Microsoft Office, Troubleshooting Guides

About the author: Vishal Gupta (also known as VG) has been awarded with Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional) award. He holds Masters degree in Computer Applications (MCA). He has written several tech articles for popular newspapers and magazines and has also appeared in tech shows on various TV channels.

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Comments

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  1. it’s really magically….. good job.. I needed those slides for my exams and it wasn’t opening
    THANKS SO MUCH

  2. It still does NOT work, I have included trusted locations and disabled protected view but I am still not able to open excel-sheet with macros downloaded from the internet.

    Why would Microsoft call it an advanced version and not inform us of the advanced challenges it comes with.

    Now am gonna have to go back to using Office07.
    Microsoft needs to rectify this if they want the customer to continue enjoying the program.

  3. This finally did the trick:

    Open word and select File/Options/General. Deselect “Open e-mail attachments and other uneditable files in reading view,” then select OK

  6. Microsoft Access has not been changed with no warning and the network trusted locations are all disabled and cannot be recreated. I have users with problems that were all set before MS did their latest upgrade and we cannot figure it out.

    Thanks

    11/1/15

  7. Thanks for such a great help. I was fed-up from this notifications finally by seeing your post gets the solution.

  9. Thanks, this really helped – the original post plus Scott’s comment worked for me. I found I had to edit the Protected View area/checkboxes, plus add to the trusted locations.

  11. I was having this protected view problem in MS Word 2016 / Windows 10…looks like enabling the checkbox “Allow Trusted Locations on my network (not recommended)” (among other things) did the trick. The concern is the constant updates seem to undue every workaround that I find…anyway. Thanks

  12. Yayyy Scott thank you! Your fix finally worked for me too and this super annoying microsoft feature is now GONE 🙂 Hey microsoft how about getting end users to trial the product first and then how about ACTUALLY listening to their feedback about what we want not what you think is good for us…..rant over!

  13. I have successfully sold off all my PC’s, laptops and Android phone and have replaced them with Apple products. [iMac, iPad, iPhone, Air Extreme Wireless, Apple TV, MacBook Pro]. Thank You Microsoft.

  15. I have tried all these and it does not work. Does anyone know how to write a script to run the edit message button automatically – it could be incorporated into a rule?

  16. Thanks a lot Scott. Following your suggestion, i.e. adding trusted location, the problem is solved only for those excel files which are already saved in any drive. But whenever i open the same file directly from outlook mail, it still showing red protected view bar. Appreciate your help.

  17. Hello All,

    Can we disable Protected view from a specific file instead of doing from software setting 🙂

    Actually i want to share a file with my clients and he don’t want to enable this option from setting just want to edit word doc without showing any Enable Editing popup… 🙂

    Thanks in Advance..

  18. I’ve tried everything but nothing worked. All my docs open in Read-Only mode and I can’t save them. It allows only saving as a new file. I have few hundreds docs and I can’t just save all of them again. I hate Office 2013!

  19. After trieng all the suggestions here, the solution was to save the document just after opening it. It asks for “Enable saving”, saves and then editing is enabled.

    Microsoft Sux since the first Windows, but we have to live with it.

  20. This is good, helped me!
    I tried online on other blogs/and sites even on Microsoft site, but nothing was helpful for my issues. Your last part Note 2 was the information I needed . Thanks a lot!

  21. Thanks! What a relief, I send and receive attachments all the time and was reallyy getting frustrated.

  24. Do it by registry:

    [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Word\Security\ProtectedView]
    “DisableInternetFilesInPV”=dword:00000001
    “DisableAttachmentsInPV”=dword:00000001
    “DisableUnsafeLocationsInPV”=dword:00000001

    Same to excel, p.point

  25. Hi
    I use Microsoft Office Pro 2016 and was having trouble using PowerPoint, following these instructions I’m now able to use the program.

    Thank you for posting this tutorial.

  26. hey man… :), wow, I flowed you indications and finally I get rid off thys anoing thing that sometimes cannot open files, word, excell…etc.
    I would like tp say BIG THANK YOU< GOD BLESS YOU i am so happy I find this post.

    Thank again.

  27. I know how to turn off Protected View, that’s easy. But how do I make it stay off. It keeps coming back on.

  28. WOW…this feature of MS Office 2013/2016 was driving me nuts! Almost took my laptop to Geek Squad but you saved me the time, trip and $$$$ THANK YOU

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