How to Open Files in Protected View in Microsoft Word

Protected View in Microsoft Word opens files in an uneditable mode that restricts certain elements, such as linked images and cloud fonts, that may be infected with viruses or malware. Protected View is stricter than Read-Only mode.

Unless you have changed your security settings, Word should automatically open potentially unsafe files in Protected View. Potentially unsafe files include those that originate from the internet, email attachments, or someone else’s cloud storage. Although this process is typically automatic, you can manually open files in Protected View, as shown in this tutorial.

Protected View does not provide complete protection from infected files. Any time you open a file from an unknown source, you are risking corruption or infection.

This tutorial is available as a YouTube video showing all the steps in real time.

Watch more than 200 other writing-related software tutorials on my YouTube channel.

The images below are from Word for Microsoft 365. These steps also apply to Word 2021, Word 2019, Word 2016, and Word 2013. Protected View is not currently available in Word for Mac.

If you are using Word through an enterprise license, you may have a feature called Application Guard instead of Protected View. Please contact your organization’s network administrator for information about Application Guard.

How to Open Files in Protected View

Launch your Word software.
Select the Open button in the Home screen.

Open button in the Home screen in Word 365 — Figure 1. Open button

Alternatively, if you have another document open already, select the File tab in the ribbon followed by the Open tab in the Backstage view.

Figure 2. Open button in the Backstage view

Select the Browse button.

Browse button in the Backstage view of Word 365 — Figure 3. Browse button

Locate and select the file in the Open dialog box.

Important Note: Don’t double-click the file! Double-clicking will open the file as a trusted document (i.e., in the normal mode).

Selected file in the Open dialog box in Word 365 — Figure 4. Selected file

Select the Open menu arrow. (Be careful not to select the Open button itself.)

Open button menu arrow in the Open dialog box in Word 365 — Figure 5. Open menu arrow

Select Open in Protected View from the drop-down menu.

Open in Protected View option in the Open dialog box in Word 365 — Figure 6. Open in Protected View option

The file should open with a yellow warning bar at the top of the screen. If you see a red warning bar, that means Microsoft has detected a threat within the file.