How to remove security warning notifications in MS Excel

Is the security warning message bar frequently appearing on the Excel spreadsheet that you are working on? Worry no more.

Here are the three most security warnings that you might encounter when working in Microsoft Excel.

  • To begin with, when enabling the edit option in Excel read-only files.
  • When opening a workbook, Excel will warn you if your workbook has macros. You will have to choose whether to enable or disable it.
  • When the Excel spreadsheet contains potentially unsafe content like ActiveX Controls in the file that you want to work on.

The security warning messages usually appear in either a yellow or red message bar with a shield icon. Disabling the message bar is the only way to stop these messages, as shown below.

How to Fix ActiveX Controls Security Warning in Excel

When you open a file with ActiveX Controls, you will see a message "ActiveX Control has been disabled." Here is how to fix the issue to make the file a trusted document.

1. When the warning message appears, click on the File tab.

2. Tap "Enable Content" in the warning message area

3. Move to the "Enable all content" and tap on always enable this document's active content.

4. Doing this action makes your file a trusted document.

How to Fix Macro Security Warning in Excel

Macro automates repetitive tasks in Microsoft Excel. After running the Macro, you can get warnings such as "Macron has been disabled."

Here is how to change the Macro settings from the trust center. Note that changing macro settings in the trust center does not apply to all office programs.

1. Tap on the file

2. Tap more then tap options

3. Scroll to the trust center in the Excel options dialogue box then, tap on Trust center settings.

4. In the trust center, tap on Macro settings

5. You will see the following options:

6. Disable all macros without notification

7. Disable all macros with notification

8. Disable all macros except digitally signed macros

9. Enable all macros (not recommended, potentially dangerous code can run)

Select any of the above options and tap Ok

How to Disable Protected View in MS Excel

The protected view prevents users from downloading, and opening files found either from the internet or sent by someone by email. The following steps will help you disable the protected view.

1. Open your Excel application and select the File menu option.

2. Select more Select "More" then "Options."

3. Tap the "Trust Center" then scroll to the Microsoft Excel Trust center settings and

4. Move to the  Microsoft Excel Trust center settings and tap "Trust Center Settings."

5. From the left sidebar, select protected view.

6. From the given options, select carefully the ones to uncheck

After disabling the protected view, you can open any of your Excel documents without the security warnings.

The above information will guide you on how to remove warnings on Microsoft Excel. Hopefully, you will not get annoyed about the pop-up warnings again. To avoid loss of data, data theft, and other security issues, it is advisable not to make any security changes in the trust center.