In Excel: save the file to OneDrive or SharePoint, then press Share in the top-right corner and enter the people or copy the link — that is what enables real co-authoring.
Save the workbook to OneDrive, OneDrive for Business or SharePoint — co-authoring does not work on a local or network drive.
Click Share in the top-right corner of the Excel window.
Enter names or email addresses, or use Copy Link and set who the link works for.
Choose "Can edit" or "Can view"; use Link settings to set an expiry date or a password where your plan allows it.
Use File ▸ Info ▸ Version History to review and roll back changes.
To stop sharing, open the Share pane ▸ Manage Access and remove people or the link.
What this does
Modern sharing and the old Share Workbook feature are two different things, and picking the wrong one is the usual source of pain. Co-authoring requires the file to live on OneDrive, OneDrive for Business or SharePoint; then several people edit the same .xlsx at once and see each other's cursors. The legacy "Share Workbook (Legacy)" command is a pre-cloud mechanism that merges separate copies, blocks tables, conditional formatting and PivotTable edits, and is hidden from the ribbon by default for good reason. If you cannot use cloud storage, the honest alternatives are sending copies and merging them yourself, or moving the data into a system built for concurrent writes. Most people learn this as a sequence of clicks and forget it by next week; learning it as a pattern instead is what lets you apply it to the next, slightly different version of the problem without starting from scratch. That is the difference this page is trying to make. Treat “sharing excel spreadsheets” as a small repeatable workflow rather than a one-off click you hope to remember next time. Use a small test block before the live file, so any surprise in the affected sheet shows up while it is still harmless. When this is a ribbon command, the selection matters more than the button: confirm the range, apply the command, then spot-check the output before saving. That turns a layout choice that keeps the sheet readable and sortable into a method you can reuse, explain, and defend when the workbook leaves your screen.
A worked example
Save budget.xlsx to OneDrive, then click Share ▸ enter two colleagues' addresses ▸ set the permission to "Can edit" ▸ Send. All three of you can type at once, and coloured cursors show who is where. Use File ▸ Info ▸ Version History to see and restore earlier states. If instead you email the .xlsx as an attachment, you have created three files that will diverge within a day. The version-control problem — five copies of budget_final_v3_JS.xlsx — is solved entirely by where the file is stored, and that is the one decision people skip. A practical tip before you scale it up: build it once on a small block of test data, confirm the number against the tool on this page, and only then point it at your real sheet. That one habit catches almost every mistake while it is still cheap to fix, long before a wrong figure reaches a report or a colleague.
In Google Sheets
Google Sheets handles this almost identically to Excel. The formula syntax above is the same, and the menu lives under a slightly different label rather than a ribbon tab. Use the platform toggle at the top of the page to switch every keyboard shortcut between Windows and Mac, and expect at most cosmetic differences in naming. The aim was to get you unstuck fast and leave you a little more capable than a copy-paste would. The answer is at the top, the tool proves it, and the detail above shows why it holds — so the next time a colleague asks, you can answer without reaching for search. The short version of “sharing excel spreadsheets”: the answer is at the top of this page, the tool proves it on your own numbers, and the sections above explain why it holds so the next variation does not stump you. Excel rewards people who reference cells instead of typing values and who keep inputs separate from formulas, because that is what makes a result you can audit months later. Build it once, deliberately, with the live tool as a check, and you convert a one-off lookup into a reusable skill — which is the whole point of learning the why and not just the what.
Common mistakes
- Emailing the file as an attachment and then trying to reconcile four edited copies.
- Enabling the legacy Share Workbook feature, which silently blocks tables, conditional formatting and many PivotTable operations.
- Storing the file on a network share and expecting co-authoring, which needs OneDrive or SharePoint.
- Granting "Can edit" to a link that anyone can forward, when the data is confidential.
- Sharing a macro-enabled .xlsm and expecting co-authoring — macro workbooks do not support it.
Frequently asked questions
How do I share an Excel file?
Save it to OneDrive or SharePoint, then click Share in the top-right corner and add people or copy a link. That is what enables simultaneous editing.
Can several people edit at once?
Yes, if the file is on OneDrive, OneDrive for Business or SharePoint and is a normal .xlsx. Macro-enabled workbooks and files on local or network drives do not support co-authoring.
What is Share Workbook (Legacy)?
The pre-cloud mechanism for merging separate copies. It disables tables, conditional formatting and much PivotTable editing, and Microsoft hides it by default. Use OneDrive co-authoring instead.
How do I stop sharing?
Open the Share pane and choose Manage Access, then remove individual people or delete the sharing link.