Do you want to learn how to unshare an Excel file? You’ve landed on the best resource. Keep reading!

Microsoft Excel has made it truly easy to share your workbooks or worksheets directly from the desktop or web app. There’s no need to manually upload your workbook to cloud storage like OneDrive, Google Drive, or Dropbox and create a shareable link. So, making an Excel workbook shareable is a matter of a few clicks now.

However, you shouldn’t share workbooks containing confidential personal, school, or work data with collaborators without knowing how to share the Excel workbook when needed. I’ve explored the Excel for Microsoft 365 desktop and web app thoroughly to discover various methods. Find below the tried and tested steps and illustrations so you can practice the techniques yourself.

Unshare an Excel File by Closing the Workbook

Often you simply minimize your Excel workbook to the Task Manager of Windows and Dock of macOS and move on to the next application or for a break. Thus, if the workbook is a shared file, it still stays shared.

If you’re using the latest Excel workbook sharing feature, you only need to close the Excel workbook to sever the sharing connection. All the collaborators won’t be able to access the desktop Excel workbook. However, they can still access the copy of the Excel file in the OneDrive.

Now, if many open Excel workbooks are on your computer and you don’t know which one to close, no worries.

Browse through all the Excel workbooks. While at it, click on the Share button in the top right corner of the workbook.

If you see the Manage Access button is active, that means this one is the shared file. Simply close the workbook to stop sharing the file the next time you open it.

Unshare an Excel File From the Review Tab

Now, if you want to keep working on the workbook and don’t want to close it, you can use the Unshare Workbook button to disable the live sharing.

On your Excel worksheet, navigate to the Review tab. There, go to the Protect commands block and click on the Unshare Workbook button.

Unshare a File Using Share Workbook (Legacy)

On earlier editions of the Excel desktop app, you’ll find the Share Workbook button in the Review tab inside the Protect commands block.

However, if you’re using the latest Excel for Microsoft 365 desktop software, you won’t find this button. To get it back, open the Excel Options dialog by pressing the Alt + F + T.

There, go to the Customize Ribbon menu from the left-side navigation panel. You should see the Popular Commands drop-down list. Click on that and change it to All Commands.

Scroll down the list until you find the Share Workbook (Legacy) command. Click on it to select it.

Now, on the right below the Main Tabs column find the Review option. Right-click on it and choose Add New Group.

Click on the Add button to insert the Share Workbook (Legacy) command to the Add New Group folder.

Now, you should find the Share Workbook (Legacy) option in your Excel desktop app.

Click on the Share Workbook button and go to the Editing tab. There, you should find a list of collaborators below the Who has this workbook… section.

Select a user and click the Remove User button to delete a user. Now, repeat the steps to remove all the collaborators.

This is how you unshare an Excel file from your PC.

Unshare an Excel File Using the Share Button

This is another straightforward way to remove access to a shared workbook from your PC.

On your Excel worksheet, navigate to the Share button in the top right corner of the app. Click on it to expand its options.

In the context menu that opens click on the Manage Access option.

The Share dialog shall open. It might take a while depending on the backend settings configured by the IT admin of your school or work. Be patient!

On the Manage Access dialog box, you must look inside the People and Groups tabs to find shared users. For example, there are shared users in the Groups tab of the demo workbook I’m using to create the tutorial.

Now, click on the Can edit command near the person or group with whom the workbook has been shared before. You should now see the Access summary dialog.

Below the Ways this group has access click on the Direct Access command. You should see the Can edit button.

Click on the Can edit button to expand its options. In the context menu that opens, click on the Remove direct access option to unshare the workbook with collaborators. Click the Apply button to save the changes you’ve made.

You’ve stopped sharing the workbook from the desktop for further edits. How about unsharing access to the OneDrive copy of the same workbook? Here comes the Links tab of the Manage Access dialog.

Click on the Links tab and hit the Remove link button to delete the link from OneDrive. Now, anyone with access to the deleted link won’t be able to use that to access the Excel file on the OneDrive cloud storage.

Unshare an Excel File From Microsoft 365

Navigate to the Microsoft 365 Home portal using a web browser.

Below the Quick access section, you should find the recently opened, shared, or accessed Excel files. Click on the target Excel workbook that you want to unshare.

Click the Share drop-down below your avatar or initials. A context menu shall open. Click the Manage Access option in that menu.

Go to the People tab and click on Can edit to arrive at the Access summary dialog.

Click the Direct Access option and change it to Remove direct access option to unshare the workbook.

You can also delete the shareable URL of the workbook to completely unshare the Excel file from the Links tab.

Unshare an Excel File From OneDrive

Go to the OneDrive app of your Microsoft 365 subscription using a web browser. You should see the Recent section. There, click on the Excel button to only show the Excel files.

Hover the mouse cursor over the target Excel file on OneDrive to find the Share icon.

Click on the Share icon to open the Share dialog box. Here, you should see user icons in the lower left corner. Click on any one of those users.

The Manage Access dialog shall open. Now you can repeat the steps explained earlier in this article to unshare an Excel file using the Manage Access dialog.

Unshare an Excel File From the Local Network

Suppose, you’re using the Advanced sharing settings feature on your Windows PC in a local network to share Excel workbooks.

In this scenario, there are two ways to remove access to the Excel workbook from other users in the same network.

You probably have set up a shared folder on your PC which shared users can access from the Network browser of Windows PC. Simply remove the Excel workbook from that directory to unshare the Excel file.

Suppose, you just want to unshare the workbook temporarily and also want to keep it in the shared directory. In that case, right-click on the shared Excel file to open a context menu.

Hover the cursor over the Give access to option. Doing so shall open the overflow context menu with two options: Remove access and Specific people.

If you click Remove access all users on the network can’t access the Excel file.

Alternatively, click on the Specific people option to open the Network access dialog.

Select a user from the list and click on the Read drop-down to open the context menu. Choose Remove to unshare the workbook from the selected user.

How to Unshare an Excel Workbook on iPhone

If you’re using Excel on an iPhone and wish to unshare a file from collaborators you might find it challenging because the share access management isn’t on the Share menu on the Excel workbook.

Instead, you must navigate to the Home screen of the iOS Excel app. There, locate the Excel workbook from which you want to remove sharing permissions by scrolling down on the Home.

When you locate the target workbook, tap on the kebab menu (three dots) to the right of the file. You shall see the settings page of the workbook.

Tap the Share menu on the top of the workbook settings. This shall open the Share menu on the Excel iOS app.

Now, tap on the Shared With menu to access the Manage Permissions option.

Here, you shall see all the users who’ve got access to the workbook.

Tap on the email of the user you want to remove. On the next screen, tap Remove again to delete access.

Repeat the steps for all other users to completely unshare the Excel workbook.

How to Unshare an Excel Workbook on Android

The workbook unsharing method is a bit challenging on an Android device. However, I’ve figured out the whole process and created easy steps so you can learn the method quickly and also remember it for a long time.

Open the Excel mobile app on your Android smartphone or tablet. If you’re already on the app, then ignore this step.

Navigate to the shared Excel workbook in the Excel home screen for Android and tap on that to launch the file. Again, if you’re already on the target workbook, you’re on track so far.

Now, tap on the Share icon in the top right corner of the Excel mobile app. This should open the Send link menu at the bottom of the Excel app as an overlay screen.

The Shared with section shall show the collaborators of the workbook. Click on any of the user’s initials to open the Manage access overlay.

You can scroll down or up the Manage access list to find configurations for all of the collaborators of the Excel file.

Click the Can edit drop-down arrow of a shared user and tap the Stop sharing option in the context menu to remove the shared user.

Now, repeat the steps for the rest of the users to unshare the workbook from all of the collaborators completely.

Unshare an Excel File Using VBA

If you wish to automate the process of unsharing an Excel workbook, you can use Excel VBA. Find below a simple script you can use:

Sub UnshareWorkbook()
    ' Check if workbook is shared
    If ThisWorkbook.MultiUserEditing Then
        ' Unshare the workbook
        ThisWorkbook.ExclusiveAccess
        MsgBox "Workbook has been unshared successfully.", vbInformation
    Else
        MsgBox "Workbook is not shared.", vbExclamation
    End If
End Sub

To learn how to use the above script to create a VBA macro, go through the following Excel tutorial:

📒 Read More: How To Use The VBA Code You Find Online

Conclusions

Now you know how to unshare an Excel file. You can try out methods like the Review tab, Share button, Microsoft 365, etc., on both Windows and macOS computers.

Also, I’ve explained the techniques to unshare Excel workbooks exclusively from iPhone and Android.

If the above methods helped or if you know a better method to unshare Excel workbooks, comment below!