Excel file says it is already open

Office Office Exchange Server. Not an IT pro? Sign in. United States English. Ask a question. Quick access. Search related threads. Remove From My Forums. Asked by:. Archived Forums. This IT Professional forum is for general questions, feedback, or anything else related to Office Sign in to vote. If you have Excel open and double-click the file to open it, the error message does not occur. Friday, December 20, PM. Only opened workbooks can be assigned to an object variable. When we try to assign a closed workbook to the variable, an error occurs.

So if the given workbook can be assigned, the workbook is open; if an error occurs, the workbook is closed. Tips: Again, this is a function that can be used to evaluate any file you pass to it, via its TargetWorkbook argument. If you have locked the file yourself, it might be because the file is open on a different device, or the previous instance of the file didn't close properly.

Tip: Sometimes a file may get locked if everyone editing isn't using a version that supports co-authoring. To co-author together, make sure everyone is using the Microsoft subscription version of Excel or Excel for the web.

Make sure the file is closed on all your devices. If the error still occurs, wait a few minutes for the server to release the lock on the file. If the other user is not you, you can wait until the other person is done and has closed the file.

You can also choose to view it as read-only. Or, you can ask the person to close the file, check it in , or give you edit permissions. If you want to work on the file at the same time as other people, then make sure everyone uses a version of Excel that supports co-authoring.

When you co-author, more than one person can open the file, and you can see each other's changes quickly — in a matter of seconds. If just one person uses a version of Excel that doesn't support co-authoring, then everyone else will get the "locked" error — even if everyone else is using a version of Excel that does support co-authoring. Libraries on SharePoint On-Premises sites. If you have an on-premises site and Excel for Microsoft , try using Excel Online to co-author instead.

For Windows : If you are trying to co-author , check the file name of the file and make sure it is in either. She can then edit it and save it just fine, but this is annoying for her.

Multiple "repairs", the quick version and longer version requiring Internet connection, have been tried but they have not fixed the problem. What else should I be looking at?

It sounds like she had the file open when excel closed abnormally, either a crash or the power was turned off on the computer. This leaves the "lock" file behind. It is this lock file that is causing the problem. Make note of the "Default local file location".

Then open that folder on her machine. Delete it, and any others you may find. You could even do a global search on her machine for files with that naming convention and clean them all up. Or you could go old school and use this DOS command to delete all of these temp files:. Threats include any threat of suicide, violence, or harm to another. Any content of an adult theme or inappropriate to a community web site.